Buzz Report reports: New York’s Scholastic will release seven formats of books around the release of New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass in December, which the publisher is co-producing. Additional products will include multi-platform video games from Sega, figures from Corgi, collectibles from Master Replicas, trading cards from Inkworks, playsets from Mega Brands and games from Sababa Toys.
"We're reaching all these different ages," says Leslye Schaefer, senior vice president of Scholastic Media, told Playthings. "This property has such a large fan base." The first push of product will debut about six weeks prior to the release of the film, with additional promotions and support throughout the subsequent release of the DVD and, hopefully, ahead of another movie in the series, since Compass is the first book of a trilogy, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.
Buzz Report: Licensing Show
NEW YORK—Licensing show started with a loud Vroom! Even though the vehicles weren’t revved up (and we wish they were), Warner Brothers Consumer Products opened this year’s event by unveiling the Mach 5 car from Speed Racer as well as Batman’s Bat Pod from The Dark Knight. Both films are out this summer, with Mattel at the steering wheel as master toy licensee for both.
The thrills continued throughout the day. As exhibitors and attendees settled in, preparing themselves for the next two days of back-to-back appointments, constant leafing through schedules and, perhaps, sealing some deals, several television and film licensors were already making big announcements of partnerships and other agreements that will impact the industry into 2008 and 2009.
Glendale, Calif.-based Dreamworks' Rick Rekedal, head of interactive, toy and wireless licensing worldwide, told Playthings that the toys will keep coming for Shrek moving into 2008 with Shrek Ever After, a special retail program that will section off Shrek product as a more distinct destination in retail with special displays that give the brand "a natural home" on shelves, including a boys’ toys category, Ugly Ever After; Pretty Ever After, which will include dolls, hair play and dress-up play products for girls; and, for infants, a Shrek-themed product section called Cuddly Ever After.
“[Shrek] is big enough that we can have a presense in each of these areas,” he said. Rekedal added that the company wants to focus on releasing just two films per year to avoid contributing to the animation fatigue that has plagued the industry. He would rather people know that the films are specifically Dreamworks properties—and anticipate their high quality—than get lost in the mix. The two films in the works for 2008 are Kung Fu Panda, the tale of Po the Panda, a lazy animal that is picked to be a Kung Fu master, and Madagascar 2, the sequel to the popular 2005 feature featuring the voices of Ben Stiller, Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat), Raven Symone and more. Having one of its two films be an established sequel is "ideal," Rekedal said, noting, "It seems to really help our momentum at the box office."
For the adult market, Dreamworks will continue to work with McFarlane toys for action figures, including Shrek.
Paramount Pictures, Hollywood, Calif., is also giving the collectors something to look forward to later this year, especially if they are fans of the The Spiderwick Chronicles books, or of the Robert Zemeckis-directed Beowulf. For Spiderwick, iToys is partnering to create interactive toys, including the "Seeing Stone," featured in the film, as well as figures that feature magnetic motion action.
"The Seeing Stone is such a centerpiece of the book and the film," Michael Bartok, executive vice president of licensing for Paramount, told Playthings, noting that additional toy products will ideally also be very integral to the look and feel of the movie. "One of the cool things about our toy program is that the partners are very sophisticated," he said. "We think we can really partner together with them and add value." Some products will hopefully expand all the way to the mass market, with other versions or products likely to be available in specialty, Bartok said. "There's quite a few tiers." Additional licensees for Spiderwick include University Games and Simon & Schuster.
For Beowulf, McFarlane will produce action figures and 3-D wall pieces; Diamond Select Toys will develop figures, prop replicas and resin busts; Ubisoft will develop a video game; Fantasy Flight Games will develop additional games; IDW will create a four-part comic book series adapted from the movie's screenplay; and publishing products will debut from both Chronicle Books and HarperCollins.
Products for both films will likely begin in specialty and then expand to mass if the audience is as large as expected, Bartok said. “With each property, we look at the different ways the license gives the product resonance with consumers and the way the film resonates with the audience...We don’t want to do any category for the sake of doing the category. We’re not in the business of logo-slapping.”
And while the upcoming Batman film, The Dark Knight, is a bit darker than past films, this hasn’t stopped Warner Bros. Consumer Products, Burbank, Calif., from giving younger fans something to play with once the film premieres. With Mattel at the helm, new chunkier Superfriends action figures and vehicles designed for smaller hands, plus role-play items like a Mega Cape with cowl—which opens 6 feet wide—a Grapnel Launcher and Attack Bat, will debut soon. Additional partners for the brand include Rubies (adult/kid costumes); Lego (construction sets), Digital Blue (electronics) and Jada Toys (plastic figures).
And for the upcoming Speed Racer, licensees now include Rubies, Pacific Cycle, Zizzle, Jada and Sakar. Warner Bros. is also working on signing more licensees for the new live-action Where the Wild Things Are, with Crocodile Creek (literary plush), Fisher-Price (view finders), Sababa Toys (games) and Mudpuppy (puzzles) already on board.
New York’s Scholastic will release seven formats of books around the release of New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass in December, which the publisher is co-producing. Additional products will include multi-platform video games from Sega, figures from Corgi, collectibles from Master Replicas, trading cards from Inkworks, playsets from Mega Brands and games from Sababa Toys.
"We're reaching all these different ages," says Leslye Schaefer, senior vice president of Scholastic Media, told Playthings. "This property has such a large fan base." The first push of product will debut about six weeks prior to the release of the film, with additional promotions and support throughout the subsequent release of the DVD and, hopefully, ahead of another movie in the series, since Compass is the first book of a trilogy, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.
Al Kahn, president of 4Kids Entertainment, sat down with Playthings to discuss strategy moving into the fall and beyond. Overall, the company intends to focus more on programming and product based on games like the upcoming Dinosaur King, which is inspired by the popular trading cards that first launched in Japan in 2005, and Chaotic, which launched in January in support of 4Kids' new games division, TD Digital. The division will produce trading card games for various properties. Kahn explained 4Kids' licensing strategy this way: “In this business, you have to think of each license as a chair. If the chair has no legs it falls, the license falls. We want to understand the target audience first and if any product takes away from the drivers—for example, bringing in action figures may drive down the age, so even though you make some money, you feel the downside. We’re not in a rush to throw out product. We take our time.”
Some other news out of the show:
San Francisco manga publisher and anime producer Viz Media has named Bandai its American toy licensee for products based on the new anime series Blue Dragon, which is based on the popular Microsoft Xbox 360 Role Playing Game, for release this August. Earlier this year, Viz was named the master licensor for the television, home video and non-video game merchandising rights for Blue Dragon.
HIT Entertainment, New York has partnered with Chapman Entertainment of the U.K. for the representation rights for two new preschool series, Fifi and the Flowertots and Roary and the Racing Car in the U.S.
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