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Hasbro's Marvel License After 2020?


tarot

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As people may not know, Hasbro's license for Marvel (and Star Wars) is supposed to be up for 2020. While I have no doubt that they will renew the license before then, is anyone else getting worried that they have not announce the renewal yet. I mean the last time they renew the license was 2 year before they were supposed to be up. 

There is also the fact that they have been buying many licenses like Power Rangers and Overide, indicating that they are prepare for they eventual loss of the License. There is also the fact that Mattel's president has indicated that he is looking to purchase those license (hahahahaha, fat chance Mattel. Disney already refuse to renew their old licence with you don't think they will work with you again). 

Am I the only one worried? Do you think 2019 might be the last year of Marvel Legends?

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1 hour ago, tarot said:

As people may not know, Hasbro's license for Marvel (and Star Wars) is supposed to be up for 2020. While I have no doubt that they will renew the license before then, is anyone else getting worried that they have not announce the renewal yet. I mean the last time they renew the license was 2 year before they were supposed to be up. 

 There is also the fact that they have been buying many licenses like Power Rangers and Overide, indicating that they are prepare for they eventual loss of the License. There is also the fact that Mattel's president has indicated that he is looking to purchase those license (hahahahaha, fat chance Mattel. Disney already refuse to renew their old licence with you don't think they will work with you again). 

 Am I the only one worried? Do you think 2019 might be the last year of Marvel Legends?

While yes, I do find that a bit concerning that they haven't renewed yet and it's only a year away, I think Hasbro would be crazy not to renew the licences.  The Marvel license alone has to be extremely lucrative, and then you add in the Star Wars license, probably the two biggest pop-culture/collectibles licenses out there.  I am a little worried, but thinking on it, I'd say it's pretty safe Hasbro will renew them.   

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I'm confident they'll renew it. They're hitting all the right spots, even if it's getting increasingly hard to financially keep up with all the releases. If they're getting them out there, they must be selling; and selling that amount of figures, a lot of which are blink and you'll miss them, must be good business. That's only speaking for the ML 6", there's also the basic lines and the props. I'd be more worried about Star Wars' unsteady distribution (where I'm at we haven't gotten any new figures since TLJ), but they seem to be doing ok everywhere else.

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4 hours ago, tarot said:

They lost the license to spin master

Not the complete licence they still will be making girl and pre-school DC toys. But they lost the Boy's toys licence. You can read more here: http://news.toyark.com/2018/12/26/mattel-loses-most-of-their-dc-comics-license-to-spin-master-327899

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The rumor I've been hearing is that Spinmasters will be doing the more "Child Oriented" action figure lines. Whether that be rebooting the 4 inch line or doing a 6 inch limited articulation line similar to what Hasbro's been doing with their non-Legends line. The DC Multiverse will be designated as an "Adult Collection" (or some such) and will remain with Mattel as they have made vast improvements to the line and should be showing more upcoming figures at Toy Fair 2019 and an official announcement should be made no later than SDCC 2019. Of course there's been no formal comment in that regard and any correspondence with any online personalities have been vague at best, but some supposed "people in the know" claim to have contacts that have informed them. Now, as I said, it's all just rumor at this point, but based on Mattel's recent work on the line and product that has been shown up to this point, it kinda makes sense to me.

That being said, I'm also fairly confident Hasbro and Marvel will renew their agreement as it's been pretty damn successful to this point with the Avengers franchises and it wouldn't make sense for them not to at least try to cash in on the future the MCU holds when the X-Men and FF franchises take over.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Man, I don't even want to think about life with Hasbro making Marvel Legends figures. Devastation would be an understatement. I just got into the whole collecting ML trend for almost two years now. I have to admit that Hasbro does create some pretty cool figures. A few hit-or-miss figs but overall a pretty solid trend to be apart of. 

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I think if Hasbro lost the license, I'd be pretty upset.  Even though i'm trying to scale back on purchases after going all out in 2018 and  engage in more cherry picking of waves, i still enjoy seeing all the figures they produce and the subsequent enthusiasm from fans of the characters,  whether those characters personally appeal to me or not (e.g., the Kingpin wave).  I don't think any other action figure line available at retail has surpassed Hasbro's achievements, although i'm sure there are a few other lines that might come up in a conversation about the best one.

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I'm like 20% worried. I try to stay optimistic and think that it's just a matter of time (and paperwork) until the renewal comes through. I think business is going great for both companies, so why would they end it? Unless Disney wants to do the figures themselves, because otherwise I don't know who else could do a job like Hasbro's been doing the past years. Also, what do you think about Spinmaster and DC? 

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2 hours ago, RoYbarra said:

  Also, what do you think about Spinmaster and DC? 

I don't want to stray too far into DC stuff in a marvel thread, but I'm not optimistic.   I think that we won't see any comic-based highly articulated figures available at mass retail for awhile.  Maybe we'll see articulated figures based on the DCEU or CW shows but I think its more likely that Spinmaster will focus on something more like a basic line, with a lower price point thats targeted more towards kids than adult collectors.  That's just a guess, though, so who knows.  I pretty much gave up on DC multiverse awhile ago so I'm not too upset, just more money to spend on ML and Star Wars Black Series figs.

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HasCon 2019 has been indefinitely postponed. I think there is some turmoil at Hasbro- Marvel Legends is about the only toy line that they seem to be handling well. I've heard rumors in the past that there have been talks about Disney buying them, and I'm wondering/hoping that's what's going on.

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Disney buying Hasbro would make sense. Of all the Disney licensed lines Marvel is the best, though I think many may argue that Transformers is the most successful. If you'll remember, a few years ago there was a bit of a tiff between Hasbro and Disney because Hasbro had put in a bid to purchase DreamWorks, a rival of Disney and Pixar. If Disney's influence and the fear of losing the Marvel and Star Wars licenses was enough to make them withdraw the bid I can just imagine the clout they hold if they so wished to purchase Hasbro outright. From outward appearances it would seem that Disney doing its toylines internally might be a good thing, but there's something sinister about the Disney execs holding all the cards with little to no control by the actual brains that built up the line to this point. It would be nothing but movie propaganda as far as the eye can see. Oh, the horror. Also, most likely they would consolidate all existing licensed toy lines back to itself which could ultimately clog up production lines and reduce the amount of ML product they release. I don't think it would be a good thing.

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I'm worried in the sense that having to start over with a new company would be a huge headache. I think back to when Hasbro put out their first few waves of figures and how awful they were compared to where we are now. I feel the the Marvel Legends line is too successful for them to give it up. The only way I see them getting rid of it is if they start a GI Joe six inch line. I think that's the only toy line that could fill gap of ML both financially and appeal to the fandom. Could you imagine if they released a six inch GI Joe wave and have Marvel Legends? The army building possibilities, swapping accessories. Man that would be a great time for collectors and a.c.b.a. 

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7 hours ago, FigurePatrol said:

Could you imagine if they released a six inch GI Joe wave and have Marvel Legends? The army building possibilities, swapping accessories. Man that would be a great time for collectors and a.c.b.a. 

I can imaging that would make anyone building an armory for Punisher happy since they would in theory be easy to buy and you know the weapons would be in scale with Marvel Legends figures.

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  • 1 month later...

I mean, what is there to say? I'm sure most of us would like to see Hasbro retain both the Star Wars and Marvel licenses.   That said, with all the figures they 've come out with over the past few years and this year,  i do feel pretty satisfied with the characters they've provided, even if there are still gaps in my collection here and there. It would be the end of an era, but at the same time It'd be kind of fun during 2020 to see hasbro release everything they've kept in the wings.

If Hasbro does lose the marvel license, my hope is they would turn their attention to DC.  Would love to see hasbro tackle comic DC characters although i don't have much interest in DCEU.   Certainly given the quality of Hasbro's figures I'd check out whatever they followed up with.   Or I'd just channel my figure collecting urges towards NECA and  DIamond Select.

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Honestly, anything other than Hasbro at this point and I am out.  Mattel has steadily declined, NECA feels so fragile, and I was recently given a McFarlane figure as a gift and the plastic feels weird (not to mention the paint apps are rough).  I don't want to sound like a fanboy, but I really don't care for a lot of other companies products at this point for the price.  

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There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread, specifically with DC, despite the news breaking right before and at ToyFair this year lol.

McFarlane has picked up the collector focused license for DC and it appears it will still be called Multiverse. He has the rights to make any DC figure from any property (comic, game, movie, cartoon, etc) within the range of between 6in and 12in. Spin Master will produce non-collector focused figures. Todd also said that he is going to try his hardest to have his DC figures on store shelves by 1/1/2020. While he will most likely make all kinds of stuff and in different scales, you can expect his line of basic 6/7in figures to have his new 22 POA system, that he is slowly but surely working into all of his lines.

Regarding Hasbro for Marvel and Star Wars, while anything can happen, the current license contract extends to the entire year of 2020 for both and doesn’t officially expire until 1/1/2021. Hasbro has already announced their ESB 40th Vintage line for Star Wars for 2020 and Hasbro also probably already has most of their 2020 blueprint mapped out at this point, for Legends 2020.

While it is not confirmed of course, I can say with 100% certainty that Legends will get renewed as that has been one of the very few divisions/sectors within Hasbros action figure portfolio, that has seen constant and sustained growth quarter over quarter. 

I can say with reasonably high certainty  that Star Wars will also be renewed however unlike Marvel, the Star Wars franchise has seen marginal to sharp declines in sales since 2016/2017. Their B&M distribution is awful and that’s partly to blame but there are other factors too such as the demise of TRU, poor quality control prior to 2018 and other components such as the last “major” SW film was TLJ and Solo did not perform well (even though the Solo product line as a whole has been fantastic) Conversely, I have no doubt that things will pick up when the Ep9 onslaught arrives. 

Its also worth noting that while Star Wars in one of their most lucrative brands (not the most however), Hasbro pays an exorbitant amount of royalties and licensing fees to Disney and all of those previous fees that were being paid out LucasFilm prior the Disney acquisition, have all gone up since then. Not including the broad licensing agreement contract itself plus the annual premium payouts based on product sell-through, Hasbro on top of that, also pays a flat 20% royalty to Disney per unit. For every Black Series Figure sold at $20 MSRP, Disney gets $4 minimum a figure. For every TVC Sail Barge that was purchased, Hasbro gave Disney eoughly $100 per unit. Etc.

Lastly, it would be highly unusual that any company can afford to buy the SW master license due to the above reasons as the licensing fees and royalty payouts are through the roof expensive. Neca and McFarlane are immediately disqualified due to their respective sizes and on-hand capital/worth and as far as the other major players go, that only leaves Mattel and one look at their bottom line should be enough for Disney to turn them down. Jurassic Park has been one of the very few Mattel brands to actually see strong growth but beyond that, they have been missing quarterly projections left and right, have subpar operating net income and have recently let go a decent number of employees. Forget all that for the moment...can anyone name a collector-focused Mattel line (minus Hot Wheels) that hasn’t been met with mixed results at best or one that did not just fall to the wayside over time? What was the last one? DCUC? If Mattel picked up Star Wars then barring a miracle in execution, I would most likely stop collecting SW cold turkey and that would stink since I’ve been at it since 1995 without missing a beat. 

Guess we will just have to wait and see!

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2 hours ago, bashpics99 said:

It feels like Mattel is doing OK with the WWE figs, or at least i keep seeing see newly stocked figs showing up at WM and Target.  

They aren't terrible, the figures are just sort of bland with a lot of re-used parts.  They definitely have gotten better since I quit collecting them about two years ago though.  

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4 hours ago, CobraSaboteur87 said:

There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread, specifically with DC, despite the news breaking right before and at ToyFair this year lol.

McFarlane has picked up the collector focused license for DC and it appears it will still be called Multiverse. He has the rights to make any DC figure from any property (comic, game, movie, cartoon, etc) within the range of between 6in and 12in. Spin Master will produce non-collector focused figures. Todd also said that he is going to try his hardest to have his DC figures on store shelves by 1/1/2020. While he will most likely make all kinds of stuff and in different scales, you can expect his line of basic 6/7in figures to have his new 22 POA system, that he is slowly but surely working into all of his lines.

Regarding Hasbro for Marvel and Star Wars, while anything can happen, the current license contract extends to the entire year of 2020 for both and doesn’t officially expire until 1/1/2021. Hasbro has already announced their ESB 40th Vintage line for Star Wars for 2020 and Hasbro also probably already has most of their 2020 blueprint mapped out at this point, for Legends 2020.

While it is not confirmed of course, I can say with 100% certainty that Legends will get renewed as that has been one of the very few divisions/sectors within Hasbros action figure portfolio, that has seen constant and sustained growth quarter over quarter. 

I can say with reasonably high certainty  that Star Wars will also be renewed however unlike Marvel, the Star Wars franchise has seen marginal to sharp declines in sales since 2016/2017. Their B&M distribution is awful and that’s partly to blame but there are other factors too such as the demise of TRU, poor quality control prior to 2018 and other components such as the last “major” SW film was TLJ and Solo did not perform well (even though the Solo product line as a whole has been fantastic) Conversely, I have no doubt that things will pick up when the Ep9 onslaught arrives. 

Its also worth noting that while Star Wars in one of their most lucrative brands (not the most however), Hasbro pays an exorbitant amount of royalties and licensing fees to Disney and all of those previous fees that were being paid out LucasFilm prior the Disney acquisition, have all gone up since then. Not including the broad licensing agreement contract itself plus the annual premium payouts based on product sell-through, Hasbro on top of that, also pays a flat 20% royalty to Disney per unit. For every Black Series Figure sold at $20 MSRP, Disney gets $4 minimum a figure. For every TVC Sail Barge that was purchased, Hasbro gave Disney eoughly $100 per unit. Etc.

Lastly, it would be highly unusual that any company can afford to buy the SW master license due to the above reasons as the licensing fees and royalty payouts are through the roof expensive. Neca and McFarlane are immediately disqualified due to their respective sizes and on-hand capital/worth and as far as the other major players go, that only leaves Mattel and one look at their bottom line should be enough for Disney to turn them down. Jurassic Park has been one of the very few Mattel brands to actually see strong growth but beyond that, they have been missing quarterly projections left and right, have subpar operating net income and have recently let go a decent number of employees. Forget all that for the moment...can anyone name a collector-focused Mattel line (minus Hot Wheels) that hasn’t been met with mixed results at best or one that did not just fall to the wayside over time? What was the last one? DCUC? If Mattel picked up Star Wars then barring a miracle in execution, I would most likely stop collecting SW cold turkey and that would stink since I’ve been at it since 1995 without missing a beat. 

Guess we will just have to wait and see!

Thank you! That was a lot of good info.

 

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