Indiana Jones Q&A With Hasbro Round #4

[Wheeljack35]

http://toynewsi.com/article.php?itemid=13311

 

Indiana Jones Q&A With Hasbro Round #4

by JayC

 

 

The folks who work on the new Indiana Jones toy line at Hasbro have agreed to do a regular Q&A session with us here at TNI regarding their new toy line hitting shelves now.

 

 

TNI: With the Indiana Jones movie come and gone now, will it be difficult to keep retailers interested in stocking this line with nothing like a movie promoting it externally? Already readers are complaining that the Last Crusade wave is next to impossible to find. Is Hasbro taking steps to address this and can they insure consumers that both the Last Crusade and Temple of Doom figures will see as good a distribution as the Raiders and Crystal Skull waves did?

 

Hasbro: Like with Star Wars, we do our best to forecast ahead of time what the right mix will be, but once we have started shipping figures there is little we can do to control the mix at the store level, and it is really up to the consumer response to direct the sell-through (i.e. whether there are enough kids to take away all the extra Indy figures, enough collectors to pull through the secondary characters, etc). When new waves come in we do prioritize shipping, so that is one way we control what goes out to stores, but overall, when stores replenish depends on consumer takeaway. We are not shorting the figures from either the Last Crusade or Temple of Doom waves, but how fast they get out there to stores depends on the store-level sell-through of IJ figures, when stores need another shipment, and what wave is scheduled to ship at the time.

 

 

 

TNI: Any thought of doing some type of deluxe 3 3/4" ARK toy that lights up or has sounds. Something the really re-creates the opening of the Ark scene from the first movie?

 

Hasbro: That's an interesting idea, but we have no plans to do another 3-3/4" Ark.

 

 

TNI: Will we see a Marcus Brody figure released?

 

Hasbro: It's unlikely that we'll get to him.

 

 

If you would like to ask a question of this team, head over to our FORUMS and post it. We may use it in a our next Q&A which will take place on August 15.

[Wheeljack35]

No Marcus Brody??

 

WTF?

 

Are they giving up continuing the line?

[YounglingKiller]

I agree. No Marcus Brody is total BS. He's a major part of the movies. We get the Monkey Man, The Ugha and Cemetery warriors, and even freakin' Sapito and they won't make Marcus Brody? Don't get me wrong, I love the obscure characters but not making a main character is rediculous. I really hope they will get to him at some point. If they do indeed give up on the line I'll be really pissed. But with the sneak peek at 2009 I find that doubtful, but not unlikely...

[jedimaster-c]

I love thier excuse with the Last Crusade wave also.The "Raiders" and "Skull" figures are jamming the pegs.I was only able to find the complete LC wave twice.

[Jmacq1]

No Marcus Brody??

 

WTF?

 

Are they giving up continuing the line?

 

Thats the exact impression I have after reading that answer. I think the Indiana Jones line has not performed up to Hasbro's expectations. When they initially were coming out, Hasbro's comments were all "We're looking at the long-term fo this line" etc... They heavily implied that they wanted this line to end up like Star Wars...a fixture on the toy aisles regardless of whether a movie was out or not. Problem being...Indy just isn't as "big" a universe as Star Wars (much less with characters that should be as interesting to kids as adult collectors)...that kinda limits what you can do for the line.

 

Now, by saying "they won't get to" Marcus Brody, that (to me) strongly implies that they already have an "end" to this line in sight. If Marcus Brody were a Star Wars character, they'd be saying "Well, it might take a few years, but we'll probably get to him eventually." Saying "we wont likely get to him" makes it sound like there's a limited timeframe to play with. At the very least it's a definite shift in tone from what Hasbro was putting out in the early stages of the line.

 

Maybe we're reading too much into it, but with as much of this line collecting dust on pegs as there seems to be, I'm thinking it wasn't remotely as big a "hit" as Hasbro wanted, and now they're going to have to cut their losses. I wouldn't be surprised if Indy is off of shelves completely (save for perhaps lingering remnants) by Christmas of next year. Grab what you want when you find it, because it migt not be around that much longer.

[chopsooie]

I had the feeling that the Indy line would not last too long, but I am happy to have what I have gotten so far. As long as they come out with the January line and dont cancel before then I will be totally happy. I am really happy with the explosion of Indy merchandise. I was able to get a good fedora otherwise before the movie came out a good Indy fedora was always too expensive.

[Fraggus]

Well...that was thoroughly depressing

 

Unless I didn't see it...did Hasbro answer the question about TLC figures or....am I missing something?

 

And NO Marcus figure? That sucks..yeah I got that exact impression that Hasbro will be axing this line....and that's f******g b******t!!!! SOOO crappy to hear (although it's not an official statement I think it's safe to say at this point with the way things are going and how that QandA went :()

 

Yeah...I'm still happy to have gotten the figures I've gotten thus far...and if they don't cancel the line before they release all the stuff they've show I'd be pretty happy.

 

Guess it's not Hasbro's fault if the line gets cancelled...there's prolly a lot of factors...Kingdom of the Crystal skull sucking gigantic floppy horse penis probably didn't help matters either The other figures from previous Trilogy shouldn't have to suffer...but I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles ..sigh....

[barbecue17]

Honestly, this line would seem to have done better if released in a collectors format. If this line had been presented as a collectors line with a smaller run, my guess is it would have done better, but instead it seems like Hasbro was planning on running it exactly like Star wars. Had this been available in smaller shipments, like the G.I. Joe 25th anniv stuff, it'd probably be a pain to find but we'd most likely see a longer lifespan.

[Stevy Maximus]

Maybe we're reading too much into it, but with as much of this line collecting dust on pegs as there seems to be, I'm thinking it wasn't remotely as big a "hit" as Hasbro wanted, and now they're going to have to cut their losses. I wouldn't be surprised if Indy is off of shelves completely (save for perhaps lingering remnants) by Christmas of next year. Grab what you want when you find it, because it migt not be around that much longer.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if some markets didn't dump the line after THIS Christmas. And my suspicion is that Hasbro may only have a wave or two aside from the Raiders wave seen at SDCC on tap for the early part of 2009, after which point the line may be done UNLESS the line does REALLY well at Christmas.

 

Although, given the property, I think Hasbro could still do a few Indiana Jones figures WITHOUT the support of a full line. We've already seen Hasbro integrate Battlestar Galactica Titaniums in with Star Wars, why not a few comic packs here and there?

 

All movies got adaptions, by Marvel, so there is material there to adapt, plus Brody and Ravenwood were in the continuing Marvel series. The only flaw is that each set would HAVE to have an IJ figure. Something to think about.

[Jmacq1]

I actually wouldn't be surprised if some markets didn't dump the line after THIS Christmas. And my suspicion is that Hasbro may only have a wave or two aside from the Raiders wave seen at SDCC on tap for the early part of 2009, after which point the line may be done UNLESS the line does REALLY well at Christmas.

 

Although, given the property, I think Hasbro could still do a few Indiana Jones figures WITHOUT the support of a full line. We've already seen Hasbro integrate Battlestar Galactica Titaniums in with Star Wars, why not a few comic packs here and there?

 

All movies got adaptions, by Marvel, so there is material there to adapt, plus Brody and Ravenwood were in the continuing Marvel series. The only flaw is that each set would HAVE to have an IJ figure. Something to think about.

 

I dunno, I just don't see it happening. Funny enough comic packs were another thing they talked about doing with this line. I just can't help but think it's been a serious loser for Hasbro, given how much "smaller" everything seems to have become in regards to the scope of the line. I think a lotta folks bought their one Indy figure...and that was it.

 

Honestly, Indy just doesn't lend himself to action figures the way Star Wars or G.I. Joe does. There's a very limited character selection, and an even smaller "action oriented" group within that selection ("Shortpacked" had it dead on with Marcus Brody..."Museum Curator" action figure? Yeah, that'll go over well with the kiddies). That pretty much means that it's a line that'd have to survive on adult collectors after the first few waves, and with them shipping the initial waves in "Star Wars numbers" it was probably a losing proposition from the get-go. Plus, between a poor economy and all the other lines out there, adult collectors only have so much money to go around!

 

Too bad...I REALLY wanted the German plane from Raiders as an exclusive somewhere...but it's probably telling that I wanted it so I could use it as a Cobra aircraft with G.I. Joe rather than for the Indy line itself.

[SnTrooper]

I don't think this is an indication that the line is ending or that we will never see Marcus. Two other sites asked about getting a figure of him and got the exact same answer. But they asked if we would see him in 2009. Plus one of the sites asked about an Ark Ghost in the next question and got the generic no plans but we'd like to do it someday answer. It looks to me like our answer was just a copy and paste that lead to it being out of context. It should have read "It's unlikely that we'll get to him in 2009". This doesn't mean the line won't end next year but I don't think Hasbro has planed the end yet.

[Wheeljack35]

The movie is going to be released in Oct

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see interest pick back up after the DVD comes out

[Jmacq1]

I don't think this is an indication that the line is ending or that we will never see Marcus. Two other sites asked about getting a figure of him and got the exact same answer. But they asked if we would see him in 2009. Plus one of the sites asked about an Ark Ghost in the next question and got the generic no plans but we'd like to do it someday answer. It looks to me like our answer was just a copy and paste that lead to it being out of context. It should have read "It's unlikely that we'll get to him in 2009". This doesn't mean the line won't end next year but I don't think Hasbro has planed the end yet.

 

I still disagree, particularly after reading some of the answers from the other sites. Once again, the "tone" of their answers has completely shifted. When they started out it was, "We're looking at this as a long-term line" etc....

 

Now many/all of their answers are: "We don't think we'll get to him." and "We have to see what kind of traction the line has moving forward after the DVD comes out." This line has NOT been a huge hit, otherwise Hasbro wouldn't be throwing out these "We'll sees." Heck, I think one site basically flat-out asked if the line was coming to an end, and Hasbro gave them the "We'll see" answer.