Well, if this comes to pass, I hope they go out with a bang and decimate our wishlists.
Didn't Hasbro issue a statement about being an entertainment company? IIRC, they were serious about getting into film/TV at one point.
Dumping toys to become a movie studio is just stupid enough to come out of some cocaine-addled executive's mouth.
That was the former CEO's push. Once he passed away and the current guy took over, he immediately jettisoned PFP and that particular push into entertainment - and immediately sold eOne.
I don't think "completing teams" and "losing the license" are an equivalent. Maybe the guys at Hasbro are just listening to us who constantly ask to complete teams?
Just as line planners, I don't get spreading out team members over three+ years. Like the Starjammers - they gave us two in one line, there are four total (five?) - but Hepzibah and Raza are not even on the rumored lists. So... why even start with the two? If fans want one, they're gonna want four.
That's the infuriating part of it - get us excited and then just leave us dangling for YEARS. Starting a new team with Cortez in the latest line-up instead of continuing or even finishing the last one is where I start to question the intention. Why that d-list character instead of another d-list character who finishes something?
Just as line planners, I don't get spreading out team members over three+ years. Like the Starjammers - they gave us two in one line, there are four total (five?) - but Hepzibah and Raza are not even on the rumored lists. So... why even start with the two? If fans want one, they're gonna want four.
That's always been my confusion, it seems like you would sell more by building momentum around completing a team or a team's era in a year or so across assorted waves. If Hasbro announced that an updated/re-released Nightcrawler and a new Hound Rachel were coming just as the Excalibur 3-pack dropped, wouldn't that help sales all around?
Hasbro may be in a similar position now. It's not like they're family run and have a CEO who will let emotion get in the way of Hasbro doing something so bold as to exit the toy production world. If he is of the mind that their future is in something else and can get the board to agree then that's what they'll probably do, as crazy as that may seem to all of us who grew up with Hasbro the toy maker.
So this is actually quite an interesting quote - because it seems that until 2006 - so some 80 years after the company was founded a Hassenfeld was the head of Hasbro. So, in fact, it WAS family run until the 21st century, when the reins were finally handed over to a non family member. And even then the reins were handed to a long time Hasbro employee who had worked his way up through multiple divisions and was loyal to that company. He died in 2021, opening the door for a new type of "business first" CEO to step in.
Yup. Not to bring it back to Disney again, but that company saw a similar change back in the 80s. It was slow though, likely because some Disney family members were still alive and had sway with the likes of Eisner and Miller, but the company still changed. And once it got to Iger that "big company run like a small company" thing was long dead and it was all about maximizing profits.
Just as line planners, I don't get spreading out team members over three+ years. Like the Starjammers - they gave us two in one line, there are four total (five?) - but Hepzibah and Raza are not even on the rumored lists. So... why even start with the two? If fans want one, they're gonna want four.
That's always been my confusion, it seems like you would sell more by building momentum around completing a team or a team's era in a year or so across assorted waves. If Hasbro announced that an updated/re-released Nightcrawler and a new Hound Rachel were coming just as the Excalibur 3-pack dropped, wouldn't that help sales all around?
I think that’s just the reality of working with an IP like X-Men that has literally hundreds of possible character and costume combinations in any given wave, and they only get around one per year (two if we’re lucky and a Retro one also comes out). Ditto with the Avengers, Spider-Man, any big name property really. There are probably a ton of different factors that go into choosing figures for an assortment beyond who completes what team, so I can see how characters, especially ones who are fan favorites but realistically d-listers, get lost in the shuffle.
Just wondering, will there be anymore reveals this year? Is that it, until sometime next year?
@basil-elks seems like sometimes there's a surprise Amazon box set around now, right?
@tsi Yes they did but it doesn't seem to be going well. Also, I never knew Magic was big enough for them to consider saying the hell with everything else. If they think Transformers and G.I.Joe can make more money by farming then out then this new CEO will. I think they're wrong though. No way I see that succeeding as those franchises are doing well for them and won't perform as well from licensors.
Marvel is different, this isn't the same as other years where it was simply "paranoia." That license hurt their returns in recent years and a new CEO with apparently radical ideas wasn't on the table before. I still think it's too radical to happen across the board but can see them not renewing the Disney licenses.
@ditko I think with Magic it's not just that it's big but also that the margins are fantastic. The printing is comparatively inexpensive compared to their toys, the game's increasingly moving online anyway, they make a mint in extremely limited-run product for the collector contingent, and Lord knows they're eventually going to end up incorporating crappy AI art and cut out the illustrations and paintings they spend money on.
When we talk about licensing Transformers and G.I. Joe, we're not just talking about figures. Just one example, but have you seen how many games those franchises have now? RPGs, board games, tabletop deckbuilders, miniatures games, mobile games - none of those as far as I know are made in-house, and Hasbro owns multiple game companies. Most of Hasbro-licensed tabletop stuff is through Renegade Game Studios rather than their own WotC or Avalon Hill, because it's just easier to farm them out to a midsize company for whom that stuff scales much better.
An interesting thing I think about in this discussion about walking away from licensed toys - if not toys altogether - is of Hasbro's history with the Star Wars license. Back in 1991 when Hasbro bought Kenner, Kenner had a long standing deal in place with Lucasfilm whereby in non-movie years for Kenner to retain the license to make toys they simply had to pay a $10,000 royalty to Lucasfilm, and this was apparently good in perpetuity. But at that time - 1991 - Star Wars was as dead as that franchise has ever been and Hasbro either accidentally, or deliberately , did not pay the $10,000 royalty to Lucasfilm and so the toy rights reverted to Lucas.
Less than a year later Lucas announced a new trilogy of films and Hasbro had to enter a bidding war to win back the rights to make Star Wars toys at a MUCH higher premium than if they had simply issued the $10,000 check.
I feel like letting go of the Star Wars and Marvel licenses now could be a similar thing. Toy sales aren't now what they were in 1995 when Hasbro relaunched Power of the Force - but they aren't nothing. And though Marvel and Star Wars have experienced a dip in their overall popularity there is opportunity for both brands to surge again. If the new Avengers movie arc resonates with fans and goes gangbusters; or if the new Star Wars trilogy by Simon Kinberg hits big with audiences, it's entirely possible Hasbro is kicking itself and having to bid for a license they probably could have renewed much more cheaply - or worse, watch a competitor profit off of those instead.
Marvel in general had a very rough 2023 with both The Marvels and Ant-Man 3 bombing at the box office, so there being a downturn in toy sales isn’t shocking. However with Deadpool & Wolverine crushing a billion and another two Avengers movies on the horizon, there every chance that could easily change. That’s not even getting into another Tom Holland Spider-Man and the last Spider-Verse film on the horizon as well. I don’t see Hasbro dropping the license right on the cusp of that, but we’ll see.
Just wondering, will there be anymore reveals this year? Is that it, until sometime next year?
The explanation given was that the reveals at the recent European cons were light because there will likely be an end of the year livestream, I’m guessing in December.
https://twitter.com/danyunistrying/status/1851979820415992062?s=46
Thank you 🙂
I don't believe it either. The license isn't going anywhere. I think we're all just bored with staring at empty pegs and "out of stock" web pages. Don't these "if Hasbro looses the license" musings come along every few years?
Yep. Usually when Hasbro's license was expiring and a press release announcing a renewal hadn't been released yet. So trauma-loving collectors would trot out the equivalent of "the sky is falling" and Hasbro must be losing the license.
Yes, action figures sales have been restricting year after year. And Marvel and Star Wars movies, and associated merchandise, haven't been exactly exploding with a warm welcome. But certainly Hasbro is still making money off the licenses. And Disney/Lucasfilm/Marvel also have to realize their having issues selling their new media effectively to the masses. If anything changes, I could see how the license is handled/granted changing. Maybe Hasbro doesn't get a master license. Maybe the license is parsed out more. Or even several competitors both getting a license for similar scales (like how both MAFEX and Bandai are producing similar product). I just don't see Hasbro willingly walking away from licenses which make them hundreds of millions of dollars.
@secondwhiteline I thought about that right after I posted. It's not like most horror movies are raking in tons of money, but they're cheap to produce and have some audience.
I also agree about the license being restructured. No way do I see Todd getting a Master license but he is aggressive and maybe gets a 7 inch slice while Hasbro keeps another slice at a cost they can live with.
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