PLAYMATES Mutant Mayhem/Tales of the TMNT/etc.

Talking to some industry friends about this, and there is a general consensus about three things:

1) Playmates definitely lost the license to someone else. Mattel or Hasbro would be the best guesses, naturally.

2) This is definitely not good for any other company with their hand in the TMNT jar.

3) FUCK the Ellisons.
 
The Ellisons fucking suck shit and there’s not gonna be a “good news” to this unless you like when rich fail sons ruin formerly good things, in which case holy shit are you in luck!!!!
 
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Playmates -deserved- to lose the license for many years now. Their output has been embarrassing and the people in charge over there are utterly braindead and completely out of touch with what anyone actually wants from them. However, this could be very bad for people who are not Playmates.
Whether it will be good for collectors will really depend on what kind of collector you are and who ends up with the master license. Hasbro could make some killer product, but I have a feeling that would also be the end of NECA TMNT - a huge blow to a lot of collectors (and to NECA).
 
Usually when this happens there is another buyer lined up. If so, we’ll know shortly as that’s the kind of thing companies boast about. However, we already know Skydance doesn’t view TMNT as one of its tentpole franchises. This could be about clearing the deck for a reset and the end goal could be anywhere from a reboot to an outright sale of the franchise. Either way, change is coming to the franchise and a lot of people are going to be affected.
 
Playmates really doesn't have anything other than TMNT, it's been the thing their rotted vulture claws have held on to for so long...and they tried their damnedest to keep anyone and everyone away from it. It really has been frustrating seeing them trip up other companies over these years. Playmates kinda sucks, and I think they've been really bad for TMNT for the longest time, and I'm not really that sad about this happening to them.

The ripple effects of this, however, will be interesting.
 
Misfit said:
Usually when this happens there is another buyer lined up. If so, we’ll know shortly as that’s the kind of thing companies boast about. However, we already know Skydance doesn’t view TMNT as one of its tentpole franchises. This could be about clearing the deck for a reset and the end goal could be anywhere from a reboot to an outright sale of the franchise. Either way, change is coming to the franchise and a lot of people are going to be affected.
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Honestly, I feel like selling it would be the best option for all parties. Especially us as fans.

Amazing how those two wax lip having fucks can destroy so much in so little time. And with this, a preview of what would happen to our DC heroes if they got a hold of them. All sorts of fuckery.
 
I repeated this so many times last night but I feel like the content reissues of the 1988 waves is what really put the kibosh on Playmates. That trick works only so many times before collectors and kids get wise and realize that Playmates has run the TMNT brand into the ground and they have nothing viable to offer. It is indeed the end of an era, but that funerary bell began to rang as early as 2020


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I am at peace with my TMNT collection. I have the vintage Playmates stuff and that is likely a set that my heirs will be selling off once I'm gone, no plans to ever part with them. NECA gave me the movie figures I always wanted. I'm good.

That said, talk about the end of an era. Playmates TMNT was always a staple. Too bad.
 
Stoopid_Sandwich said:
I repeated this so many times last night but I feel like the content reissues of the 1988 waves is what really put the kibosh on Playmates. That trick works only so many times before collectors and kids get wise and realize that Playmates has run the TMNT brand into the ground and they have nothing viable to offer. It is indeed the end of an era, but that funerary bell began to rang as early as 2020
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I bought the reissues solely for the retro packaging and that feeling from childhood finding that detailed "sewer" cardback on shelves. Beyond that I'm good. Playmates did a good job with the Dick Tracy figures. I doubt that'll be doing anything in the future for them to pin their hopes to though.
 
I don't know what to think about the Playmates side of it because I wasn't a buyer but TMNT is that one IP I just keep trying to find the one line I fall in love with and it's been hit or miss, wrong scale but good quality, bad quality but good scale, fun figures but not iconic (liked the TMNT/Power Rangers crossover, weirdly)... I've kinda fallen in love with NECA's Mirage figures the past year or so, but I''m not deep into the line, I think I've got two versions of the turtles and four supporting characters there, something like that.

This IP fascinates me with how far-reaching the license is. I mean, Stranger Things crossover (shoddy) toys from somewhere, those oddly scaled Loyal Subjects ones... I guess Playmates offered some consistency amongst all the noise and options?

Hoping some evil empire didn't get the license, but who knows. I swear, TMNT has has the strangest journey out of all the IPs from our childhoods...
 
Again, my biggest concern right now is Paramount/Skydance fucking everything up slicense wise.

I am not ready to let NECA go. I'm just not. They fulfilled a wishlist that was decades in the making. I want them to KEEP going. I'm afraid if they lost the license, they're done for as a company. That is seemingly the only thing keeping them afloat at this point.

MetyToyz are just getting started. Got my Raph today and it is one of the best figures I have ever held in my hands. It's SO good.

Same goes for JoyToy. They've been such fun figures.

And just WHO got it? If anyone did?

I could give a shit about McFarlane, his offerings have been dogshit. If he gets the license and it blocks all other parties, I'm done collecting TMNT. I pray he hasn't.

Mattel would be okay. Hasbro would be okay. Depending on how they treat the property. But I worry less about them getting it and doing awful figures, and more about them being full stops on NECA and Mety and JoyToy.

Outside of that, I just don't see anyone matching the quality of products we've been receiving. This is all very concerning. And my digging has not given me any answers.
 
RicksNerdLife said:
MetyToyz are just getting started. Got my Raph today and it is one of the best figures I have ever held in my hands. It's SO good.
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One of the unintended benefits on collector's behalfs, good luck ever trying to sue a Chinese company to stop them from doing anything, least of all making money for themselves.

I really like the MetyToyz TMNT figures so far. They could just as easily "go rogue" as any other Chinese producer of non-TMNT TMNT-like products.
 
RicksNerdLife said:
Again, my biggest concern right now is Paramount/Skydance fucking everything up slicense wise.

I am not ready to let NECA go. I'm just not. They fulfilled a wishlist that was decades in the making. I want them to KEEP going. I'm afraid if they lost the license, they're done for as a company. That is seemingly the only thing keeping them afloat at this point.

MetyToyz are just getting started. Got my Raph today and it is one of the best figures I have ever held in my hands. It's SO good.

Same goes for JoyToy. They've been such fun figures.

And just WHO got it? If anyone did?

I could give a shit about McFarlane, his offerings have been dogshit. If he gets the license and it blocks all other parties, I'm done collecting TMNT. I pray he hasn't.

Mattel would be okay. Hasbro would be okay. Depending on how they treat the property. But I worry less about them getting it and doing awful figures, and more about them being full stops on NECA and Mety and JoyToy.

Outside of that, I just don't see anyone matching the quality of products we've been receiving. This is all very concerning. And my digging has not given me any answers.
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I mean Viacom is the reason why we have a slicence at all. When Mirage was in charge they were content with Playmates making their figures but around the time that Neca started making figures in the collector market, it totally threw off Playmates game and they immediately tried to sue Neca and make collector grade figure themselves. It didn’t work and the results were atrocious, and to further dampen Playmates efforts, Viacom sided with Neca and told Playmates to quash the lawsuit for the sake of damage control. They had just acquired the copyright in 2009 and they didn’t want to have a lawsuit hanging over the very IP that they just acquired. Once playmates backed off, the floodgates opened. And suddenly every single company big and small had access to the TMNT license in some form or fashion. Fast forward to where we are now and I think it’s somewhere around 50-60 companies that have made TMNT action figures in the nearly17 years since Viacom allowed the slicense occurred.

Now I know that Paramount has gone through a bit of a sea change recently, but surely they see the windfall from having the license divided the way it is. If all of the companies that are allowed to make product are suddenly cut off from doing so, than the billions that the industry takes in annually will suddenly be staunched in favor of one solitary company, that may or may not be as capable of producing the results that Paramount Global expects.


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I can say a lot of negative things about Skydance, but “stupid” is probably not one of them. It’s easy to look at the situation from where we are and conclude that more companies making turtles means more money, but that isn’t necessarily true. If Skydance wants to sell a new master license that is truly exclusive, it will cost that company more than what Paramount made off all of TMNT toys the past few years. They’ll be looking for a big upfront payment from a producer who can meet the level of volume they’re after and who has the widest reach, which for them is probably just who can get into the toy aisle at big box retail. It’s why Marvel, DC, Star Wars, etc. are all handled by an exclusive license holder. Overseas companies are likely to be least impacted as even those other brands are still available to the likes of Bandai, Medicom, etc. It’s really NECA, Super7, McFarlane that have reason to be afraid unless one of them can meet Skydance’s ask, but I don’t know about that. I had heard Warner took less money from McFarlane for the DC license because they just weren’t happy with Mattel. I don’t see Skydance approaching anything like that - they just want the highest bidder. And if Mutant Mayhem 2 is still a “Go,” they need the next company to get cracking pretty soon to get toys to retail for it.
 
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