NECA - General Thread

Trevor was wearing a Munsters shirt with Lily very clearly visible during YHS’ walkthrough, in the before times if Randy had done that I’d have taken as a strong clue the rest were coming, but now that even seeing a prototype doesn’t mean we’re getting the figure I just assume that means Trevor put a random shirt in of his suit case that happened by chance to have one of their licenses on it.
 
It's the Figure Paradox- they say if you want to see more, to buy the thing. But by buying the thing, if not enough people also buy the thing (or any number of other reasons), they won't keep making them, and then you'll be left with an incomplete collection.

It's weird. I feel like I'd be fine having just Herman in the collection, as he's a pretty good singular summation of the series. But if I commit and buy Grandpa as well, I'm gonna want everyone.
 
joshsquash729 said:
It's the Figure Paradox- they say if you want to see more, to buy the thing. But by buying the thing, if not enough people also buy the thing (or any number of other reasons), they won't keep making them, and then you'll be left with an incomplete collection.

It's weird. I feel like I'd be fine having just Herman in the collection, as he's a pretty good singular summation of the series. But if I commit and buy Grandpa as well, I'm gonna want everyone.
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And it's even more likely that not buying initial releases will end in cancelation these days. Between tariffs and rising costs, as well as a couple lines that went bust, it seems clear to me that NECA is a bit less willing to take risks than they used to be.
 
joshsquash729 said:
It's the Figure Paradox- they say if you want to see more, to buy the thing. But by buying the thing, if not enough people also buy the thing (or any number of other reasons), they won't keep making them, and then you'll be left with an incomplete collection.

It's weird. I feel like I'd be fine having just Herman in the collection, as he's a pretty good singular summation of the series. But if I commit and buy Grandpa as well, I'm gonna want everyone.
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It's why I'll never be convinced that these companies are leaving money on the table by dipping their toe in the water as opposed to just diving in. Come out swinging with a wave of Munsters and you probably get more sales because it's an instant collection. Go one by one and collectors hold off because they've done this dance before and don't want an incomplete display. Now, I'm not saying every property can support a wave of product and I'm sure there are some where NECA or whomever would be forced to take a bath, but with ensembles and teams I think in most cases they're better served playing to their consumer.
 
I agree, if the core character set is 6 figures or less just make everything and have it come out all at once - or within a few months but preorder all at the same time.
 
I'm sure there are budgetary concerns that need to be balanced, and producing six figures of an untested line instead of another figure or two in a proven seller may not always make financial sense.
 
I'm sure that's the thinking on the part of companies that do this, but it may be a self-defeating strategy. There's also the cumulative damage of not delivering a comprehensive line in the past which erodes consumer confidence. Any line NECA attempts to launch suffers initially because of stuff like Munsters and Dinosaurs. At the very least, they should be prototyping the main cast so people get a look at them, even if they're only releasing them in pairs. It's not apples to apples, but when Mondo embarked on The Real Ghostbusters line they released them one at a time, but started off by showing Peter and Egon along with two ghosts and a promise they would do all four 'busters and people believed them. And they've apparently been rewarded with strong sales for a product that, internally, they were quite nervous about.
 
If they go ahead and get the license, strategize/plan, sculpt some mockups, develop the packaging and promote the property and all of that, I feel like you should already have an idea that at least there are 5 or 6 characters that are viable at retail, otherwise why bother with the license at all?

It actually seems like it would be cheaper to sculpt the five cast members at once and cancel the whole line if pre-orders don't meet expectations than go into production for a couple of figures only and then pull the plug.
 
I see your guys' points, but I'm not really convinced. It's possible they have sculpted or at least started sculpting other figures, but as we know, the tooling itself is the big cost, and it's a balancing act as to whether or not it's worthwhile showing that stuff and then pulling it back in the end (they've already done it with stuff even in the TMNT lines, their current big seller). And I think NECA's been hurting for a while now, which is why we've seen moves like them offering almost everything via their own store (sometimes first, sometimes simultaneously) when that used to be more rare, and all the re-releases of older figures, sometimes not even with any updates done to them.
 
secondwhiteline said:
I thought the licensing issues were pretty much over for this one? Feels like the Friday merch floodgates have opened again, plus they finished filming on that Crystal Lake show late last year.
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Not even close. The rights are somewhat ironed out, but there are still all sorts of issues with who can license what, and different movies are subject to different rules and what-not. For some reason, they cannot make any of the stuff from the Paramount movies involving Jason (but can rerelease the figures they've already done). The original film they can do, because those rights were given directly to Victor Miller, but things like the video games and some of the New Line films are all different rights holders. I believe they have a deal with "Jason Universe", which is basically rights to the character of Jason, and other media Jason is associated with aside from films. Since the Friday the 13th games fall under this, they've found a workaround to producing figures of Part 8 & Jason Goes to Hell by basing them on the game skins.
secondwhiteline said:
Wait, were those characters in Fortnite? I concede I love the idea of Michael thwacking down trees with a synth.
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While I don't play Fortnite, they have been adding horror characters to the game for a while. They do "Fortnite-mares" (I think that's what it's called) every October where they introduce playable horror movie characters like these. I know they've also done Art the Clown and Ash from Evil Dead in the game as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see that eventually.

It's interesting to note that the Fortnite Michael Myers has the closest looking mask to the original 78 film that NECA has ever done. I may get this just for that reason.
joshsquash729 said:
Never played Dead by Daylight, myself, but I've liked all the monster designs I've seen. Trapper looks cool- kinda gives me Juggernaut vibes from the Thirteen Ghosts movie. Heck, those would be cool figures to get! Never gonna happen, but still.
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Man, I'd LOVE figures of the 13 Ghosts remake! Those ghosts were some really incredible, cool designs!
 
Obviously the Toony Terrors are much different- I'd imagine wayˆcheaper, but I'm forever glad that they didn't split up, say, the Hocus Pocus witches or WWDITS cast between waves. So we know they're at least willing and aware of the fact of releasing everyone at once, but like you said, it may not entirely be cost effective, unless they start doing a bit more part reuse- say, more Frankenstein pieces for Herman, Dracula pieces for Grandpa, etc. Which is kiiinda what they are now, just a bit adjusted- Grandpa is obviously a bit thicker than Dracula, etc. Part of me thinks there's at least some parts with similar dimensions they could've reused from the Rob Zombie Munsters line, but I applaud them for wanting to keep things as new as possible.

TheGillMan said:
Man, I'd LOVE figures of the 13 Ghosts remake! Those ghosts were some really incredible, cool designs!
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I would not expect all 13, but at least the main 4 ghosts- Jackal, Juggernaut, Hammer, Angry Princess could be cool. Princess would be a bit tricky, since she's basically a nekkid lady, but there's obviously ways around that. If I had to choose only one, either Jackal or Hammer.
 
TheGillMan said:
Not even close. The rights are somewhat ironed out, but there are still all sorts of issues with who can license what, and different movies are subject to different rules and what-not. For some reason, they cannot make any of the stuff from the Paramount movies involving Jason (but can rerelease the figures they've already done). The original film they can do, because those rights were given directly to Victor Miller, but things like the video games and some of the New Line films are all different rights holders. I believe they have a deal with "Jason Universe", which is basically rights to the character of Jason, and other media Jason is associated with aside from films. Since the Friday the 13th games fall under this, they've found a workaround to producing figures of Part 8 & Jason Goes to Hell by basing them on the game skins.
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Got it, that is much more complicated than I realized. Their solution was not totally dissimilar, I guess, to how you can get the Ghostface rights separate from Scream.

I guess this also kills my chances of getting movie characters from the Paramount era, except maybe the ones who showed up in the game? I'd buy a Fox figure.
 
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