Hagop and I had a chance to meet with always wonderful Randy Falk from NECA today. A perennial highlight at Toy Fair (and any other even they attend, for that matter), they laid out a ton of continuing fan favorite lines and some new ones with quite a bit to show off. Whether you are an Aliens fan, Planet of the Apes fan, or anything in between, there was a lot to see. Randy gave us a TON of information, so lets hit the highlights with some pictures for each line. More pictures will be added soon!
PREDATOR
The fantastically successful Predator line keep chugging along and it continues to offer a ton of diverse and exciting releases. NECA showed off two new series that will be coming later this year. Series 12 is heavy on the comic iterations and the series 13 is the 2014 Kenner homage wave. I love that they are mining all kinds of different corners of the Predator universe and the Kenner figures make for some sharp and varied additions. The REALLY exciting thing though is that Predator is getting vehicle later this year. Yep, that beast of a “bike” measure over two feet lone has detachable guns (that can be held by the figures) and comes with a pilot, the NECA-created “Viper” Predator. All that, and they are shooting for a price point of around $80 buck, which is pretty fantastic, if you ask me.
I asked about getting Dillon to compliment out Dutch figure, but Randy said that Carl Weathers is a no go for this and isn’t interested. Which is a shame, really. NECA has shown that they can make a fantastic likeness of the man, c’mon, Carl – get that paycheck!
PLANET OF THE APES
NECA will run two PotA lines concurrently – one based off the classic movies and TV and one from the current movies. There were no new figures shown, but there are tons in the pipeline, some of which will be debuting soon. Expect and oh-so-important female coming from the classics and a silver back gorilla for the current property. When asked about Chuck Heston’s Taylor – nothing is planned right now, but if you want him, make your voice heard, he is not outside of the realm of possibility.
RAMBO
The First Blood Part II Rambo was shown off in two-up form and more releases are planned, including the larger 1/4 figure.
ROBOCOP
If you have not gotten a Robocop figure yet, you are in luck. Hitting soon is a new figure with the jet pack and gun and will be right at the $30 price point. He looks really sharp and will be great to fill that space for a long-time or new Robocop collector.
GREMLINS
Unfortunately, no new Gremlins product was on display and Randy said they are having a really hard time getting stores to take another wave. The good news is that they are shooting to get the BAT GREMLIN out in the same form of release as the Spider Gremlin. Look for him to hit in October. Woo!
PACIFIC RIM
Pacific Rim is chugging along at a great pace and more seven inch and over-sized figures are planned. Look for the Cherno at least as one of three upcoming large scale figures. There is a ton of plastic to these and I love that they have been able to do them. The designs are so solid that they can fit in with a lot of different properties.
DC
Their 1/4 DC execution is continuing with the Ledger Joker (beautiful) and an Arkham Batman. I am more and more impressed with the sculpted detail with every release of these, and these two look to be the best of the large figures so far.
ALIENS
This was my favorite section and a good part of that is because there is a TON of Alien (that is without the “s”) stuff shown. Dallas! Man, we are getting DALLAS! Bless you, Mr. Skerritt! Randy said the chances of getting a normal jumpsuit Dallas is pretty good, too. Kane is coming as well, but with the Facehugger already firmly attached as John Hurt is not giving any likeness rights any time soon. I think this is a cool work around, though. More crew was hinted at, which bring us to the next big reveal – the POWER LOADER from the second movie. Holy smokes is this baby impressive! It is everything you could want out of a power loader, except, well – the driver! Poor Jonesy is running around without a friend, too. If I were you, I would be watching the news wires today…
Bishop also made his debut so he will be a wonderful addition to the second movie cast, and at least one more iteration of him is on the way. Alien has a TON of cool stuff lined up, so I cannot wait to see more and I really hope NECA can get more likeness rights done soon!
8-BIT FIGURES
While nothing was on display at the show, Randy did let us know that NECA has THREE more 8-Bit style figures ready to go and one of them is just going to blow everyone away. Hmm… I wonder what it will be? This has been a really successful execution for them, so I am thrilled to add more to that little corner of the display.
