Why not get a license people will actually buy?

[samurainoir]

I know the line had it's problems and came out after the show ended badly, but I'm still a bit surprised Lost was such a bust. A current property with an active passionate fan base. 13 million people watched the finale and they couldn't move 1,000 sets of action figures.

I always thought that this line might have stood a chance if somehow it were marketed to doll collectors. The show had a huge female following, and it does fit the "doll" category quite well. It's such an odd stigma between the labels of "action figure" and "doll"... the collectors of action figures won't touch dolls if it's labelled as such and vice versa.

My understanding is that it did well initially when McFarlane had the Lost license, but those were super realistic statues and produced within the first few years of the show.

I am really curious to see if there are enough pre-orders for Dexter to be released as a Mego, again, now that his show is over. Would have loved to see this come out a few years ago, but I can understandy why not given the controversy at the time over the existence of Dexter figures.

[enyawd72]

I know the line had it's problems and came out after the show ended badly, but I'm still a bit surprised Lost was such a bust. A current property with an active passionate fan base. 13 million people watched the finale and they couldn't move 1,000 sets of action figures.

I'm not. A bunch of completely boring figures of regular people with zero play value. What are you supposed to do? Re-enact your favorite scenes of people standing around talking?

[megoscott]

Hey All

Im an art director for a toy company and I work with licensors daily - (And I have no Horse in this race re: the last 8 pages of whats popular and what isnt)

First - Obviously better licenses are more expensive. Thats basic. Also - Even if you have money, some licensed are unattainable because of legal reasons, or a LOT of red tape. Also, if you have a major license, the licensor wont even look at you unless you are a firmly established company with a track record of products, and some want to know what stores you are in, etc.

The license game is REALLY hard because people tend to think that if THEY like it, everyone does. NOT THE CASE!!

For example - If someone did a line of characters from the film TREMORS, for 30$ each (mego style) I would buy them all. But how many others would?? Considering you have to make a few THOUSAND of each to be able to make it financially reasonable, You would probably be sitting on a stinker. Tremors even had 4 films and a TV series!!

Or sometimes, you might get a surprise hit - Which you dont know until it happens - But thats the thing, its a MYSTERY. And if you buy enough figures to expect a HIT every time, you will be bankrupt fast.

Im telling you from experience - Obscure 70s TV shows dont sell. YOu get the 100-200 die hard fans and maybe a few others, but when it comes down to it, you may have casually liked a show as a kid - But are you going to spend 30$ on a toy from it?? Lots of people say HECK YA!!! but not nearly as many actually open their wallets. I learned this while watching the evolution of our GREEN HORNET line of products - And that show is considered "popular."


What I have learned??? You want a character from an obscure series in your collection? Commission an artist to make you a spectacular 1-off. A lot of the guys here can do production level looking stuff.

Thats just my 2 cents!

I know the line had it's problems and came out after the show ended badly, but I'm still a bit surprised Lost was such a bust. A current property with an active passionate fan base. 13 million people watched the finale and they couldn't move 1,000 sets of action figures.

[samurainoir]

For example - If someone did a line of characters from the film TREMORS, for 30$ each (mego style) I would buy them all. But how many others would?? Considering you have to make a few THOUSAND of each to be able to make it financially reasonable, You would probably be sitting on a stinker. Tremors even had 4 films and a TV series!!

I'd totally pay thirty bucks for Tremors figures as well! Give them all Graboid BAF parts.

There are fortunately, a few different financial models these days, but the beauty of a pre-tooled stock body in the Mego format is you can get a bit more boutique with your production runs.

The BBP Lost line for example only had a 1000 of each figure produced in the second series. However, given that there are millions of Lost viewers, and that they are still not selling out even at the current deep discount prices over at EE, proves your point exactly.

I know of a couple of other ReMego lines that came out with even lower initial or overall production numbers.

But again, if you are working at this level, it's completely a labour of love. Not that anyone is ever going to get rich making Megos in this day and age.

What I have learned??? You want a character from an obscure series in your collection? Commission an artist to make you a spectacular 1-off. A lot of the guys here can do production level looking stuff.

I had come to that exact same conclusion... and was in the midst of doing exactly that, when a series of events led me to jumping off the cliff. One can only dare dream of that surprise hit. 8)

[skullface]

For the life of me I cant see a Dallas line working.....ever.Who would buy a toy from a show that had no child fan base? Same thing for loveboat.There are so many better lines,just waiting to be made.Why not WW2 ,and other historical? Or shows that had large fanbases...Hogans heroes, f toop,(not a big seller but I would love to see it) I dream of jeanie, or rotate though a vintage movie line that does big movies one after the other all under one umbrella. I would buy every Ray Harryhaussen toy in 8 inch made.
I would buy a dozen skeletons alone. It really is not hard to think of things that would sell. Go to any show and talk to dealers that have sold toys for 10 years or more and we can all run down a list of stuff that will sell if done well.

[houseofdracula]

Well, I guess we won't be seeing the New Zoo Revue anytime soon, LOL.

[tylerh]

Hey All

Im an art director for a toy company and I work with licensors daily - (And I have no Horse in this race re: the last 8 pages of whats popular and what isnt)

First - Obviously better licenses are more expensive. Thats basic. Also - Even if you have money, some licensed are unattainable because of legal reasons, or a LOT of red tape. Also, if you have a major license, the licensor wont even look at you unless you are a firmly established company with a track record of products, and some want to know what stores you are in, etc.

The license game is REALLY hard because people tend to think that if THEY like it, everyone does. NOT THE CASE!!

For example - If someone did a line of characters from the film TREMORS, for 30$ each (mego style) I would buy them all. But how many others would?? Considering you have to make a few THOUSAND of each to be able to make it financially reasonable, You would probably be sitting on a stinker. Tremors even had 4 films and a TV series!!

Or sometimes, you might get a surprise hit - Which you dont know until it happens - But thats the thing, its a MYSTERY. And if you buy enough figures to expect a HIT every time, you will be bankrupt fast.

Im telling you from experience - Obscure 70s TV shows dont sell. YOu get the 100-200 die hard fans and maybe a few others, but when it comes down to it, you may have casually liked a show as a kid - But are you going to spend 30$ on a toy from it?? Lots of people say HECK YA!!! but not nearly as many actually open their wallets. I learned this while watching the evolution of our GREEN HORNET line of products - And that show is considered "popular."


What I have learned??? You want a character from an obscure series in your collection? Commission an artist to make you a spectacular 1-off. A lot of the guys here can do production level looking stuff.

Thats just my 2 cents!

[JediJaida]

One Direction? Eh; I suppose it could be worst.

Like Justin Bieber. *shudder*

Or Miley Cyrus. *shudder with hint of nausea*

[pmwasson]

I'm sure the boy band of the month would sell well. So One Direction?

Even Mego made Menudo figures.

[MIB41]

^^^ True... It's all very subjective.

[dr_cyclops]

We should all remember the title of this thread. It does not read; What license would you like to see reMegoed?
The very title of this thread, invites debate on what someone wants and what someone else thinks would sell.

[MysteryWho]

I know it will never happen, but I would love to see a 'World's Greatest Detectives' and do a Steve McGarret, Columbo, Kolchak the nightstalker, Jim Rockford, and maybe a Mac McMillian as well. Afterall, how can you look at the 70's and not find Rock Hudson? Maybe Brick could explore that character?

Yep, I love that idea too, although I was thinking of some other detectives, like Dirty Harry, Shaft, Bullitt etc.
What people like is pretty subjective and I'm just glad that anything I want ever gets made at all. It's lucky in some ways that Mego scale hasn't come back to the mainstream and stayed part of a collector's market. Otherwise we'd have Avatar Megos, but probably no SMDM, if you see what I mean.

Mego scale is the perfect way to explore these older licenses and programs, but there still has to be some demand to get things rolling.
On the other hand it's good to start out with something somebody else isn't already doing. I was at a big Nerdfest in Toronto where a
friend of mine sells t-shirts, some of them monster themed. His business was brisk but not everything was "officially licensed". I told him I had noticed a lot of Universal monster shirts and modern monster shirts (Jason, Freddy, etc.) but no Hammer. Apparently one of the artist's he works with is in Britain, and I said get some Hammer shirts made! You have to fill some kind of void, as Distinctive Dummies does with their figures.

Meanwhile, my Mego fantasies have turned to Irwin Allen TV shows. I've really only been watching them as an adult, but they might be good for a limited Mego treatment, maybe in series of two at a time like BifBangPow does. If it doesn't fly, stop at two.

[JediJaida]

Why not? There's already an Andre the Giant action figure. All they would need is the Dread Pirate Roberts, Inigo Montoya and Princess Buttercup. Along with Prince Humperdink, the priest, and the Wallace Shawn character.

[PNGwynne]

I'd love to see Princess Bride reMegos.

The film has a cult following, would it overlap into supporting the format?

[ubermanx]

littleplasticmen.com has a top five properties that need the ReAction 3.75" treatment. Sure would love some Mego size action as well.

- Spaceballs
- Princess Bride
- Last Star Fighter
- Tombstone
- Krull

Granted these properties are more mid 80's ...

- Marty