Mythological/Legends/Religious Figures combo thread

fac said:
I know the major toy companies want to tie their releases to media, but it is a little surprising that figures that they would have to pay no licensing fees, go through no licensor approvals, etc., are not more appealing to them. Like Greek, Aztec, and mythological creatures - seems like low hanging fruit. Maybe the Odyssey will be a huge hit and lead to more interest.
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The first thing they'd tell you is that no licensing fees probably means no brand recognition which means no sales. The end. No licensing fees doesn't help if the product doesn't move, which would be their expectation.
The only company that took a chance on it was Boss Fight. It did phenomenally well for them. And even Boss Fight jumped at the chance to make licensed action figures.

It's definitely the risk aversion thing, though. Developing toys and getting them to market is insanely expensive (as we all know, of course). Companies don't want to do all that and then have the figures not sell. They want the stuff that the market research says will sell. They want Batman and whatever movie just came out that WE all know is going to tank, but the execs think is the next big thing (remember Speed Racer merch? Who DIDN'T know that was going to tank hard? Mattel, that's who).


Kal-El said:
I've always thought of Achilles and Jason of the Argonauts as having blonde hair.
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Achilles is expressly described as blonde. I can't remember if Jason is too. Probably. The Greeks had this whole thing with blonde people.
 
Damien said:
The first thing they'd tell you is that no licensing fees probably means no brand recognition which means no sales.
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I agree that is the reasoning, but given how often licensed stuff tanks, you'd think they might want to try to get something new going that they owned - but as soon as I wrote "owned" they can't protect the IP, so if they did make some Greek characters and it was popular, someone else could pounce on the characters as well, as we see with 4 or 5 different Monkey King figures.

This stuff is probably well suited for the smaller companies with a collector focus, as we are seeing happen.
 
Sean Bean
Ralph Fiennes
Joseph Mawle (my personal favorite I think)
Kirk Douglas
Arnold Voosloo
John Barrymore
Benjamin Whitlow
George Clooney, technically

Matt Damon might be the least interesting actor to ever play Odysseus and I LIKE Damon. Feels like Odysseus is an actor's character, someone people aspire to and whom directors give to actors they love.
 
PanchaMaestro said:
I mean Odysseus should look like a middle age Greek dude in a worn tunic.
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I guess that depends on the 'when' of Odysseus.

If you could find an audience for an Odysseus figure, you could probably get away with selling like three or four Odysseus figures.



docsilence said:
Matt Damon might be the least interesting actor to ever play Odysseus and I LIKE Damon. Feels like Odysseus is an actor's character, someone people aspire to and whom directors give to actors they love.
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To be fair.. Odysseus is probably one of the most interesting and complex characters in Greek myth. It makes sense that his story would appeal to actors.
 
Damien said:
They want the stuff that the market research says will sell. They want Batman and whatever movie just came out that WE all know is going to tank, but the execs think is the next big thing
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That Zack Snyder Dark Moon Netflix movie. Whatever happened to Diamond Select Toys, anyway?
Damien said:
The Greeks had this whole thing with blonde people.
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To be fair, so has basically every other civilization in human history.
docsilence said:
Matt Damon might be the least interesting actor to ever play Odysseus and I LIKE Damon.
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Thems were fighting words, at least until your last clause.
 
Honestly, I didn’t exactly leap to my feet when I heard Damon was gonna play Odysseus. I’m not a “no”, just not like a “hell yeah, this is perfect!”
 
TheSameIdiot said:
To be fair, so has basically every other civilization in human history.
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A lot of them, for sure. If I'm remembering correctly, the Greeks viewed it as potentially a marker of divine lineage, since Greeks were not traditionally blonde and thus the hair color must have come from somewhere 'other.' But they also knew blonde people existed, so who knows.


TheSameIdiot said:
That Zack Snyder Dark Moon Netflix movie. Whatever happened to Diamond Select Toys, anyway?
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Haha. My favorite example is still that I was working at Zellers when the Speed Racer movie came out, and at the time I was trying to get more into management/office stuff, so I would bring what knowledge I had. I talked to my manager and my regional manager and even had a call with a buyer to NOT buy Speed Racer product. I told them straight up the movie is going to tank and not move merch, and even if it doesn't entirely tank, it's not the kind of movie anyone is going to want merch from.
25th Anniversary G.I. Joe was getting huge that year, so I was recommending we stock way more of that and literally ignore the shitty movie.

But what do I know. So they barely got any Joe product, which sold out pretty much immediately. And they were still trying to clearance out the Speed Racer product after I had left the company and moved into construction a year later. In fact, Zellers closed down most stores by 2013 (Speed Racer was a 2008 film) and some stores STILL had lingering Speed Racer shit.

Executives don't fucking know anything. They just don't. They see 'big media push' and that's ALL they care about.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
Thems were fighting words, at least until your last clause.
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Damon is a workhorse - he always brings a good performance every time, just reliable excellence. His presence doesn't ring Odysseus to me right off the bat but I'm not NOT going to watch him in it. I just loved the quiet intelligence of Mawle's performance, and someone like Fiennes who is always a cerebral presence on screen feels more in line with my vision of the character. Damon can bring cerebral but he has that very Boston smart-enough-to-punch-you-in-the-face smart and while Odysseus is a great war hero, he's always struck me as more trickster than brawler.
 
Yeah, to me Odysseus is “what if Batman was in the Greek myths and was morally grey?”
 
Damien said:
I guess that depends on the 'when' of Odysseus.
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We'd call it his iconic costume. FA Odysseus wearing some of that Bronze Age armor everyone loves so much. Athena disguises him a few times too. So many variants. Of man. With beard.
 
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