Have toy companies dropped the ball with movie licenses?

[General_Grievous]

This year, I've noticed that besides the Star Wars line, movie-based action figures are deteriorating fast. Companies don't jump at the opportunities anymore. Allow me to explain with a few of the big movie toy licenses of this year, besides Revenge of the Sith.

Batman Begins
Mattel screwed this line up. The major villain of the movie (Ducard) wasn't even released, as far as I know. I never saw him. Plus like with all the Batman lines, they always have to have 40 different Batmans.

Lord of the Rings
Sure, it's been two years since the last movie came out, but that's no excuse. POTF2 sold well 12 years after ROTJ came out. Only four figures were released this year. We know now that the line is dead, but Toy Biz could have squeezed in a few more figures to round out the year. It was sad to see a great line like this die a long, drawn out death.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Not a single figure is being released for the new movie. Only some Legos and a Trivial Pursuit DVD Game. I'm surprised at this, given at how huge the Harry Potter cash cow is. Kids would buy them. It's really a missed opportunity, but it's Mattel's loss.

King Kong
Have you seen these figures? They suck! They're pieces of crap! This should have gone to Toy Biz. They'd actually know what to do with these. At least the movie should be great.

Chronicles of Narnia
I know they're making statues for this, but other than that, I don't know.


I dread seeing the figures for next year's "Superman Returns" and "X3".

[Captain Spoon]

They did make a Ducard figure, he started showing up around October, but it dosn't matter he looks like half a kicked in the nuts just like the rest of them.
LOTR does have a sweet Mountain Troll box set thing I scored at Wal*mart, it looks fabulous!!! Also don't forget taht the fantastic Four Figures blew as well

[JediTricks]

I have the Ducard fig, picked it up at WM last week, it's not that good.

As for the Narnia movie, Hasbro is making figs from them which are already at TRU, and they suck really bad.

I think the problem is 2-fold, first the licenses for these things cost a lot of money which eats into the product itself, and second the toymakers are seeing a lot of kids leaving collecting because the toys aren't "fun" so they try to get them back with crappy gimmicks and other junk which just screws it all up.

[Jedibill]

and not one Tripod form War of the Worlds

[El Chuxter]

In a word, yes.

However, the Fantastic Four line, overall, looks to be far better than the film itself.

[General_Grievous]

Forgot about Fantastic Four. The movie was mediocre, but the line seems to have pretty good likenesses. But all you see are pegwarmers of Thing and Torch.

But I am most surprised about the lack of Harry Potter stuff. Kids love that. Was it because the new movie is rated PG-13?

Yet, as I said before, the new Superman movie line for 2006 will probably blow. Get ready for "X-ray Plasma Shield Night Vision Superman" to rot the pegs next year.

[JediTricks]

I think it's because Mattel ruined the Harry Potter toy line when they changed the scale in the last movie's line, those were just lame crap and there's no way to go back now.

[darthvyn]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Not a single figure is being released for the new movie. Only some Legos and a Trivial Pursuit DVD Game. I'm surprised at this, given at how huge the Harry Potter cash cow is. Kids would buy them. It's really a missed opportunity, but it's Mattel's loss.

i gotta say, i don't fault them for this... the figures seemed to be pegwarmers. i think the lego sets did a lot better than the figures - not undue to the fact that the figures looked pretty horrible. didn't stop me from getting the quidditch match harry for my wife for christmas last year. half price helped that one along, though...

[Jedi_Master_Guyute]

Lord of the Rings
Sure, it's been two years since the last movie came out, but that's no excuse. POTF2 sold well 12 years after ROTJ came out. Only four figures were released this year. We know now that the line is dead, but Toy Biz could have squeezed in a few more figures to round out the year. It was sad to see a great line like this die a long, drawn out death.

are you freakin' serious?!?! This line was simply AMAZING. Some of the detail on the figures, with their armor and weaponry, was astounding and it put MANY of hte SW figures to shame. and you can't even compare SW toys to LOTR figures. Star Wars has been a cultural FILM icon since the 70's. While, i LOVE LOTR, kids are going to be drawn to a line of figures that has lots of weird looking creatures and characters with lightsabers than a guy with a shield; simple as that. While it was bad to see the line die as it did, I wouldn't say that Toybiz "dropped the ball" on the line as it was simply fantastic during its run!

[El Chuxter]

I'm sure Master Guyote will agree with me, but for one brief, shining moment at the end of the Chamber of Secrets line, Mattel enlisted the Four Horsemen to make a couple of truly astounding Harry Potter figures.

Too bad it didn't last.