Shanester Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Hi Chuck... Other than your own stuff whose stuff will you be most excited to see at Toy Fare? DSTChuck: I hate to say but the last few years with my different duties to the show I see less and less new stuff so I can’t really comment on what excited me the most. What's your favorite song to sing to yourself on the way to work? DSTChuck: I’m a HUGE Bruce fan so most of the times he’s on in the car or I counter program and we’ll you’d never believe me if I told you what was in there right now. Looking forward to answers (cryptic or otherwise!) and thanks for playing... DSTChuck: Did I win? --- On a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being not a chance in hell and 10 being positively going to happen) how would you rank DST's chances of being able to produce James Bond minimates in the foreseeable future? DSTChuck: As much as we (I ) love the movies I just don’t see that happening (I think this was asked before) --- How many more BSG (current series) waves will we see? Any hints what will be in them? DSTChuck: I see as many as you folks are willing to buy, who knows how much cool stuff could come out of season 4? Any thoughts on a Minimate equivalent of the Legendary Comicbook Heroes line? I'd loves me a Superpatriot, Savage Dragon or Star minimate. DSTChuck: We’ve done an indy line once already and I don’t see us doing another one anytime soon. When's Deadpool coming? DSTChuck: He’s on the list but no idea when. --- When can we look forward to blank minimates in obscure colors i.e. purple, pink, orange, etc.? DSTChuck: We consider blanks every year for trade shows, it just becomes a matter of where we think the budget is best spent – plus the fact that we got in lots of trouble at SDCC a few years ago. --- New Trek movie mates? Maybe? DSTChuck: Nope not for a while at least – Playmates has the movie license. Will Silence of the Lambs minis be followed up by Hannibal mates? DSTChuck: We only have the rights to Silence. Any idea why it's impossible to find minimates in Georgia? DSTChuck: People in that party of the country don’t appreciate 2” goodness??? Honestly I have no idea – go to your local comic shop and ask them to order for you! Thanks for answering as usual and from all Trekkers out there: Live long and prosper. DSTChuck: I do the best I can! --- I was just wondering what the chances of there being NFL minimates in the foreseeable future? DSTChuck: While a cool idea, we’re just not sure we want to tackle that beast anytime soon. --- As always thanks for answering our questions... DSTChuck: What else would I do when I’m suppose to be cleaning the mess I made around the house? As the trend seems to shift from comic book characters to movie characters are there other studios you are shopping minimates to besides MGM? DSTChuck: Pretty much any studio we speak with either ourselves or the studio bring up MM at this point. As most of these properties are obviously geared towards older collectors, is the shift designed to keep minimates on a specialty market, or are you still trying to go to mass retail? DSTChuck: WE don’t consider MM to be aimed at older collectors at all! We’ve had great success at mass marketing and selling to 7-9 year old boys in the past. If "Cine-mates" take off, will you be going after any television properties? I think The Office Minimates would be killer! DSTChuck: Depending how the new stuff sells once it gets out there you can expect us to pick our spots in the TV and movie realm. --- When a company offers a box set, who decides what the box set should be? With the recent Defenders set, did the company ask you for the Defenders or just ask you guys for a box set and you decided the content? Just wondering who I should lobby for a Young Avengers box set. DSTChuck: It’s a give and take with the partner they may come to us with ideas and we look into how possible it is to excecute or we go to them with ideas, each case is pretty different. --- Any chance of getting the Heroes license? DSTChuck: See above. --- Any plans/thoughts to try and acquire a license for Image comics... in particular Robert Kirkman's titles? More specifically Invincible and The Walking Dead!! There are absolutely NO figures/toys out for any of his titles, so why not jump in there and fill the void. There's a lot of people out there who would throw there money at these, and not just Minimate fans... it could also introduce a lot more people to the Minimates franchise. Surely that'll be a good thing!? DSTChuck: No plans right now to do MM based on that property. --- With the apparent success of the Cylon army-builder-assortment cases, have you considered doing such for other lines? Such as Redshirts & Klingons for Star Trek, AIM & Hydra for Marvel (assuming the license is continuing...). Thanks for your time! DSTChuck: The Cylons worked in a very limited number in a very specific case so we’re not 100% sure other army builders would work but we’ll keep our eyes on sales! --- Why is the Marvel line the only line that does not have the far-superior clear bubble packaging? DSTChuck: The package regulations are very specific for Marvel MM. --- Any chance of a Kraven the Hunter mate? DSTChuck: Sure there is always a chance. Will there be any Star Wars minimates? DSTChuck: Never say never but don’t hold you breath. --- Will we ever see the artwork for the Minimate-ized movie posters released as postcards? DSTChuck: We’re talked about several ways to get those posters out to fans, its just up to marketing and their budgets. If commercially printing them isn't feasible, could you make printable hi-resolution artwork available to Radical Confidential members or something? DSTChuck: I’m not sure how that would work with our licenses. --- Would you guys consider doing a line of mates from the movie The Warriors? DSTChuck: We have considered it and right now we have no plans to make MM based on that property. Would it be possible to see more aliens (Romulans, Andorians) and non-crew (Harry Mudd and Trelain) in the Star Trek line? DSTChuck: We’ll have to see how the new waves sell, but I don’t think we’re allowed to do Mudd. Are you going to mix the Next Generation and DS9 with Voyager and Enterprise so that the less popular shows will also get made? DSTChuck: See Toy Fair photos. --- Any chance of some original series alien minimates? (Romulans, Klingons, Andorians, Tellarites, Mugato etc..) DSTChuck: Check out the photos from Toy Fair and you will see a change of direction for the line and see how possible it might be now. Will we see BSG minimates of the other human Cylons? (Leoben, Simon, Cavill etc.) DSTChuck: Time will tell its not like we’ve decided NOT to do a character so if the line keeps going why not. Chapel & Rand, will they ever get 6" figures made of them? DSTChuck: Its under the never say never pile, we’ve come close in the past esp. if we ever decided to do one more wave of TOS. Thanks for reading. DSTChuck: Thanks for writing. --- Will we ever see a Moon Knight Minimate? DSTChuck: I don’t see why not . Any chance of Robocop Minimates? DSTChuck: We do not currently hold the license and another company had the license in the past. Is it possible you guys could re look Street Fighter and make wave 2? DSTChuck: Honestly as sorry I am to say this I think its best you guys stop asking about SF2. EDITOR'S NOTE: It was I who made this a large bolded text, not Chuck. Could you possibly make a Civil War Spiderman and Cosmic Spider man two-pack? DSTChuck: I don’t think so the CW Spidey is already in a box set with AFX. What happened to the Marvel 3-packs? DSTChuck: Those were done by special request years ago I don’t think we’ll be going back to those any time soon. Is Husker's hair from the Razor box set Apollo's prototype hair? DSTChuck: Good question. I am 99% sure it’s a new hair piece. --- Thanks for answering our questions! DSTChuck: Thanks for taking the time to ask them! In 2007, Diamond Select Toys stepped up its marketing of the Minimates brand with new licenses, posters, contests, and more announced releases. Has the investment in the brand been successful? What goals do you think the brand still needs to accomplish? Does DST have a long term (5 or 10 year) strategy for the brand? DSTChuck: Being honest I think the results have been mixed but as part of our overall plan all that has been part of something so in that respect they worked. I’d say closer to 5 then 10 year plan. --- Are pre-orders for the boxed sets any better than the 2-pack cases? And if so, would you consider releasing Minimates EXCLUSIVELY as boxed sets as you have with 24, Lambs, BTTF...? (I'm so done "chasing" figures. It's nice to simply buy the ones I want with no worries about the secondary market.) DSTChuck: The decision to go box set or two packs is a tricky call and its done case by case property by property so I don’t see one eliminating the other at any point. --- If continuing, was the Marvel license renewal "tweaked" to allow 2.5" mates? DSTChuck: I don’t see any future where the license will allow different sizes and if that ever happened I don’t see us doing Marvel in say three sizes anyway. --- Will we ever see 7" scale figures of the main BSG characters like Admiral Adama (not Husker), Roslin, and Baltar? Why haven't these been made yet? DSTChuck: I don’t see why not and was for why they have not been made – we’re only done three waves of BSG so far so give it some time. --- When will we get classic versions of Electro, Kraven and the Vulture to complete the Sinister Six? Like, are the chances pretty good or not good at all? DSTChuck: They are part of the Spidey family aren’t they??? --- Hello again, first off I would like to say thanks for answering my questions from previous Q&A's. DSTChuck: Hopefully you were happy with the answers – or at least that we tried. With the success over the past year for Battlestar Galactica Minimates and having shown them at this year’s NYTF in the diorama, has there been any new interest by retailers for the Mini-flyers. It would be sweet to get a wave of them with the two classic (Raider/Viper), two modern (Raider/Viper mark VII) and an added variant such as Scar. DSTChuck: The diorama was just a decoration it has no indication of a product line – looked cool though didn’t it? Did you see the Café window?? Honestly if we ever were to get mass market interest the flyers are something we’d re-examine. With the guaranteed success of the upcoming Speed Racer movie, I am wondering, does DST (after the purchase of AA) have the license to do Speed Racer toys still? With Mattel and LEGO doing movie stuff and JADA doing classic die cast, can DST make any merchandise for Speed Racer these days? DSTChuck: DST has NO rights to any Speed Racer product. Any chance of DST making reproductions of their Minimates promotional posters themselves or through an online venue? I have been looking for the Battlestar Galactica one for a long time and I know people would buy the cinema ones. DSTChuck: I think I answered that above but for BSG we have in fact mass produced them and gave them away to retailers and at a couple shows. Anyway, thank you for your time, DSTChuck: My pleasure. --- Hey DST, DSTChuck: Hey fan?! Have you guys ever considered another IndyMates boxed set or even line? There’s lots of companies to choose from, and I’m sure that they'd sell great at comic and specialty shops. I’d love to see Top Cow, Image, Aspen, Dark Horse, etc. DSTChuck: As I’ve said before the one we did had mixed results so it might be awhile until we try the next set like that. Thanks! --- I was wondering, what were the chances for generic character boxed sets, i.e. civilians, cowboys, swat teams, police etc. I'd imagine they'd be popular, and are open to a much larger market that a specific license. DSTChuck: We’ve discussed but nothing is on the schedule. --- Are the sculpted heads easier to make? The Silence of the Lambs boxset has a bunch of sculpted heads and they looks round and not-too-great. Is it cheaper than a new hairpiece? DSTChuck: No real cost difference – sorry you don’t care for them. --- Will we ever see WWE minimates? DSTChuck: I doubt the master toy license holder would ever allow it. --- We saw art for Dr Who minimates at TF, can you share anything about that? DSTChuck: See above Thanks again to Matt & Chuck at DST! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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