DSTZach

I did not mean to belittle or discount the WG Minimates. It was a great line, even though a lot of people here DID belittle and discount it at the time. I wasn't watching the shows religiously, so it took until VERY recently to appreciate my Screwball Minimate, but as a comic reader I do like my Squadron. And the evil Avengers. And the various Hulkbuster armors. Good times.

Are these as detailed as those, in these four examples? Maybe not, but maybe I didn't study the design sheets well enough before I made that statement. I would love to sit down and put my art-major eye on both figures next to each other, but I don't have the time. (Do I have time for THIS? Of course not.) Are there new molds? Yes, new arms and cape for Miguel, web-shooter hands for EVERYONE (not new molds, but not something we did for a lot of Walgreens Mates, IIRC), and new web effects for some of the characters. 

Do these look ANYTHING like the movie versions? Of course they do! They're wearing the costumes that the movies designers used as the basis for all of their work! Any costume differences are minor; I do not count sneaker brand, shading direction or eye pointiness. Do they look EXACTLY like the movie versions? Of course not, because these are Minimates. We're not going to make a figure shaped like a Dorito, or make Spider-Ham's head bigger than his body, or capture every faint texture applied to every surface of a million-dollar 3-D rendering. Not as a Minimate. 

A movie license was not an option -- not a cheap-out, a box-out. Comic versions based on the comic storyline ON WHICH THE MOVIE WAS BASED were a valid option. I actually suggested it, because I thought it would resonate, and comic fans (or at least comic shop retailers, our main customers) would consider jumping on board with it. Maybe it will be out around the third movie. I could be wrong about its chances of success, but if comic versions are no longer acceptable in this world of occasionally well-received but increasingly frequently POORLY received multimedia adaptations, then the line is dead.

Thank you for the assessments from Smashmaster and BHM. Here are some design sheets. 

2 hours ago, BuffaloDelorean said:

I think by Hobie they meant Spider-Punk, not Prowler.

The Best Of Spider-Man didn't have leg muscle detailing either, like the plain inner wrists it makes sense that something would get skipped with all the weblines.

I'm an idiot. I was thinking of the original Hobie Brown. Spider-Punk would be great. I wish we'd done Spider-Punk. He would have been a good substitute. Not sure we still have Marty's guitar, or Janice's. 

6 hours ago, Shanester said:

Swift Minimates? Oh boy, how the conversations have shifted.  The visuals I have seen from Rebel Moon look incredibly interesting to me.  Will that translate to Minimates?  I think the art and production on Minimates is as good or better now, than it has ever been (RIP Eddie Wires).

They came out great. I honestly can't wait to show them off, and I hope they sell well and I hope we can make more! Horned bikini alien FTW!

10 hours ago, NerdyTrev said:

Why not?

Marvel Select is specialty stores only, so as not to compete with Legends. I am not sure that Minimates is any different, at least not since Hasbro came into the picture as master toy licensee. (I know they started at Target.) And no, Walgreens may not count as mass market. 

2 hours ago, FightTheDead118 said:

A little disappointed by the lack of leg printing on these figures (yes I know spidey has his leg designs but even then he would usually have some musculature printing as well), I know simplifying tampography was brought up at one point as a cost cutting measure , but all these figures having completely blank legs makes them feel straight out of 2006

I'll be 100% honest, even though I have not seen them in person (I had to skip the show this year), I did look at the design sheets, and the painter approval pics, and... I didn't even notice. Literally. I love Minimates, have hundreds of them, but the lack of a muscle on the thigh goes right by me. I think for a lot of people that is a reality. It's an added production cost that maybe 1 out 20 people notices.

So it seems maybe they did cut some tampo on this wave, and some of the tooling we already had, but that was not what prompted this wave. We wanted to make a widely popular wave that retailers and new fans would invest in. We lowered the price to make it more accessible (this set is $40 for essentially six figures, not sure if everyone picked up on that). It just so happens that it was a set we could do relatively painlessly. 

That said, the next series has some new characters in it, new costumes, and still manages to include some A-listers. Comparable to the Daredevil wave. Hopefully everyone enjoys it.  

10 hours ago, Smashmaster12 said:

I can’t help but feel disappointed by this, it’s such a weird thing. On one hand, this is an opportunity to have Spider-Man and his friends on shelves again. On the other hand, it’s 100% characters that have (arguably) been done better elsewhere - I’m looking at you, Ben. On the other *other* hand, it’s clear this was made to piggyback on the Spider-verse movies with the character selection but it’s not the spider-verse designs so you lose that market. 

How are they not the movie designs? Miles, Gwen, Peter, Miguel and Ham are all pretty much how they appear in the movies. You honestly think that a lack of sweatpants will eliminate the entirety of the movie fan base? I'm sure a small percentage of them will see this set and a small percentage of THEM will want it, and a small percentage of THEM will buy it, and that's probably still more than who is currently buying Marvel Minimates. 

10 hours ago, Smashmaster12 said:

If DST wanted to do a Spider-Verse box set, they should have gone all in. Swap Ben for Hobie, make a jacked AF Miguel, bathrobes Peter with his kid as an accessory would be so cute. 

I'm 99% sure the movie is not in our license -- it's controlled pretty tightly, by a different movie studio. We'd have to get a new license, assuming they'd even let us, and go through two studios for approvals, which means you would see them in 2027.

Also, 2019 gave us a great Prowler, which is more recent than the last Gwen (2018), the last Miguel (2015), and the last Ben Reilly (2017). 

5 hours ago, luke314pi said:

Any chance of unmasked heads for all?

I think we opted for new web effects instead. Everyone comes with a new, different web-spray wrist attachment, and you get the new Miguel cape. 

MM are a low-margin item. We make very little money per MM. Only a huge order would make it possible to meet any financial guarantee to the Swift people. Maybe if we built up a real MM relationship with Walmart, and they expressed interest in a music line, we could go after it, but they didn't take Rebel Moon, despite being all in on the action figures. And I'm pretty sure we CAN'T sell Marvel there, so I'm not sure what they would take. TMNT? 

Hey, Miguel looks great. Huge improvement over both previous incarnations. arm spikes AND that web cape that is on the ground in front of the figures for some reason. I am not there, so I can't fix it, but I'm hoping it'll be in the pics next month in Previews. Miles is to the left, obviously. 

I'll have to ask! But I imagine if getting approval on regular D&D items is difficult, the video game will be impossible. 

There are now officially too many Joe lines. Super 7 seems to be going strong, they just announced a Cobra Mothership? 

I think they're doing the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons toy line, from the 1980s. Again, not an expert, but it seems like the toy line came first, then the cartoon had completely different characters... except Warduke? This could be a good way to go...

True, they also couldn't approve their likeness on products for a while there.

I am not an RPG guy (not since junior high), but the Pathfinder Minimates were some of my favorites we've done, so I would love to see more fantasy characters. 

I also enjoyed the last movie, so I would love to see that band of characters as well. Not sure how that would work with the studio, I think Hasbro controls all rights, but we may need to get a license from Paramount, who we already work with. 

I have never seen the 2000 movie, or its two (!) sequels.

Netflix has been playing the publicity for this movie close to the vest, not wanting to reveal too much too early. Hopefully as the movie gets closer, they will ramp up promotion. So I'm not surprised people have not heard of it, sadly. 

I've heard of him! He must be popular. Pale, pointy ears?

Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce 2-pack

It is still waiting in the wings... Not sure why we haven't offered it yet, but hopefully soonish. 

I believe, due to their success, we want to do more D&D MM. Both sets sold out. I do not know what the characters would be, though. I doubt we would do more animated, as we hit all the big characters. And the game is a tough one. But fingers crossed. 

I am a sci-fi fan in general, and I am looking forward to this movie, outside of me having a slightly vested interest in it. I doubt the second part will be cancelled, as I'm pretty sure they filmed them simultaneously. First part airs Dec. 22, second part's current date is April 19. Minimate pre-order is October 20.

While I realize there is an "anti-Zack Snyder camp," I am definitely NOT in it. I think 300 and Watchmen are two of the best comic book movies ever made, and Dawn of the Dead and Army of the Dead are both great movies as well. While I don't necessarily enjoy the DCU films in general (I'm a Marvel/MCU guy), they were not written by him, and I at least appreciate the visuals of Man of Steel, Superman vs. Batman, and Justice League. I am not an expert, but what he added to "Zack Snyder's Justice League" I enjoyed. (Sucker Punch had cool visuals, but it's been too long for me to judge the story.)

The characters in the set are not all generic civilians, but there is one civilian (with a cool new piece), one soldier, one cyborg and one robot. I think people will enjoy the designs and new parts even if they have no plans to see the movie. They won't be out until spring, most likely, so I'm sure you will be able to get them from Luke or elsewhere once you see the both films. 

17 minutes ago, Padrino said:

Look, as long as we get a minimate of this character (https://www.mysmartprice.com/gear/rebel-moon-ott-release-date-netflix-to-release-december-22/), I'm all good

The horned bikini alien? Maybe next set...

11 hours ago, WookieFodder said:

Dark Tower is actually a really cool story combining all King's books into the same universe.

If we're going to go mainstream, how about a Taylor Swift Minimate?

I enjoyed the Dark Tower film, and the MM, but I've never read the books. I know, I know...

And I would buy a Taylor Swift MM in a heartbeat. Tell her to call me!

Heh, I wasn't sure if it would make this installment. Or if anyone actually read them!

The designs are awesome, hopefully everyone digs them. The movie looks amazing. 

It's an existing license we have, but we have not announced MInimates for it yet. 

You heard it here first! And yes, it is a license for Minimates. That's why I brought it up. Unfortunately, the reveal just got pushed to NYCC, but that's only a week or so later. 

Thanks, Onyx, I don't control the socials anymore, so I can only post my pics on my own channel, but I try to send the best fan MM images to the social managers.

I don't know if Minimates can go online-only. Luckily, there are still brick-and-mortar buyers. Someday we'll hit on the right license to get them into Walmart -- it almost happened very recently, we'll show off the new license at NYTF.

Oh, and we have been trying to improve our Minimates solicitation images. The last batch of images for SDCC TF Minimates and Marvel 84 were pretty solid, I think, but sorry if past images were not up to snuff. 

I wasn't saying ALL Minimates were for adults, they're definitely great for kids, I just didn't think kids got GI Joe nowadays. I assume you have SOME attachment to the IP -- you don't make that clear, exactly -- because I can't see someone who has NO attachment to the IP buying $22 figures of the characters when there are so many other lines to choose from. But either way, I'm glad you like the Hasbro stuff! I have a lot of them, and I grew up on the cartoon and original toy line, and I think they're great. 

And Hasbro has certainly been upgrading all of their licenses to 6 inches to match Marvel Legends (Joe, D&D, Power Rangers, Indy), which leads every independent toy maker out there to try and ride that bandwagon with a 6-inch line, because they're the industry leader. (There are still some 4-inch holdouts, of course, but I always assume that's because of the investment level, and not a scale preference.) But all of OUR action figures, and most of McFarlane's and NECA's and Super 7's Ultimates, are 7-inch scale. So hopefully no one decides to nuke the 7-inch scale entirely, because that would suck.

But yeah, I do think the Joe Box Set price is a problem, if it's stopping a Minimate collector from buying a Minimate property they actually like. I wish we'd aimed for $30 per 4-pack (assuming we could match the FCBD set's price) and walked away from the individual blister cards for that reason, and all the reasons I named above. But it's too late now. Hopefully we can salvage something.

(FYI, Toys R Us used to sell a LOT of adult stuff, including a lot of pretty gruesome McFarlane Toys and -- for a hot minute -- Breaking Bad figures. Those got pulled after a bunch of moms started a petition.)

I don't think anyone ever said these particular Minimates were for kids, the price and characters are not in their wheelhouse. Kids do not know who Snake Eyes is, let alone Duke. Nobody watched the Snake Eyes movie, the two Joe movies were virtually unrecognizable, and none were seemingly made with kids in mind. I'm not entirely sure how well the last Joe cartoon did, but IIRC, it was also not made for kids. 

That said, Minimates ARE fun, so if we'd made the sets more affordable at $30 a pop, MAYBE dads would have bought them FOR their kids. 

I didn't come up with the packaging style, and it's very cool, but I had an opportunity at one point to veto it, and I regret not doing it. Even if we lost the few people who bought two sets to keep one in package, I think they would have sold better. Maybe not THAT much better, but we'll never know. 

Print advertising is not something we do lightly, it's expensive and you never know who sees it, even if you give a coupon code. (We advertise in Archie via an ad swap, and use a code there.) Online advertising is handled by our social team, but I don't know how high a priority the Joe Mates are at the moment.  Maybe when we solicit the Adventure Team, we can do something.