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Thread: SDCC 2017 preview and small news bits

  1. #11
    FatalityPitt Guest

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    I hope one of the three Wave 6 deluxes in Titans Return is Brainstorm.

  2. #12
    Other is offline Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by FatalityPitt View Post
    I hope one of the three Wave 6 deluxes in Titans Return is Brainstorm.
    nope, the case assortment has been available since last month
    TRANSFORMERS GEN TITANS RETURN DLX AF ASST 201705
    (NOTE: Asst contains 8 units; Hardhead, Hot Rod(2), Kup(2), & Slugslinger(3).)

    Brainstorm was an exclusive anyway, he was never going to get a wide release once they made that decision

  3. #13
    FatalityPitt Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by Other View Post
    nope, the case assortment has been available since last month
    TRANSFORMERS GEN TITANS RETURN DLX AF ASST 201705
    (NOTE: Asst contains 8 units; Hardhead, Hot Rod(2), Kup(2), & Slugslinger(3).)

    Brainstorm was an exclusive anyway, he was never going to get a wide release once they made that decision
    Damn.

    Well, at least it's nice to know it wasn't a totally bad decision on my part to import LG39.

    I have Hardhead and Hot Rod, but wasn't going to get Kup. So it's also nice to know Kup will be available later in case I change my mind.

  4. #14
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    On the lookout for MISB Headmaster Highbrow, Takara or Hasbro. I'm sure I could make you a sweet deal!

  5. #15
    hYpNoS is offline Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
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    Great, I po'd the legends hotrod (to match my legends kup) but now I'm having second thoughts thanks to rodimus prime, but he isn't going to have the battlestation gimmick like the g1/mp did is he?

  6. #16
    Jellico is offline Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
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    Rodimus and his matrix gimmick has me thinking of the Power of the Primes group. Does that mean that they are all due Leaders? With trailers 😉

  7. #17
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    If it hasn't all been leaked before then, we'll get the full formal spiel at HasCon.

    Very curious as to what exclusive they're going to peddle.

  8. #18
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    Well we do know that there is an Arcee "to be released in another form" that isn't a box set, so maybe an individual figure release at the con (attendee figure)
    On the lookout for MISB Headmaster Highbrow, Takara or Hasbro. I'm sure I could make you a sweet deal!

  9. #19
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    Woot woot!
    Another Blurr repaint!
    And I thought combiner wars were taking the mickey

  10. #20
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    Not to be outdone by Seibertron's exclusive interview with Hasbro designers (in post #8 & #9), TFW2005 have had their own exclusive interview as well, with some more questions about the short-lived Movie line, Titans Return and the Power of the Primes toyline (before the big leak).

    TFW2005 met up with Hasbro Designers John Warden and Lenny Panzica for a short interview about what was just revealed, the future of the Generations line, the current movie line, and Robots in Disguise as a whole, and a few specific queries regarding design choices!


    Tony B: Here we got Starscream, and the two that are Combiner Wars remolds, or reuses.


    John Warden: That’s right.


    TB: And then we got Starscream and everybody thinking that that’s going to be a combiner. Is there any kind of stealth thing going on?

    JW: Ah, very interesting speculation! [laughter] And it begins! So I can just say this, you know I’m sure if you grab Ashley here today, she’ll be able to tell you sort of the similar song, but the Power Of The Primes is really about unlocking forces within the Transformers and although there’s a lot of awesome things that happen with the Prime Masters in terms of what the powers can be, from a toy design standpoint we’ve hidden all kinds of secret easter eggs in there. We’re going to unveil them slowly over the next few months, lots of awesome news actually coming at Hascon, big debuts there and a lot of secrets will be revealed. So we have plans on reviewing all of these hidden toy features. One of the toy features we’re actually able to talk about today is the fact that Dreadwing and Blackwing combine together to form a pineapple apple pen. [laughter] Just kidding! Dreadwing!

    TB: Alright. Is Titans Return kinda like done – the line?

    JW: That’s correct.

    LP: Well, we’re moving on.

    JW: Well we’ve got some exciting reveals this year for Titans Return, but yeah just like Combiner Wars, Titans Return is coming to a close, that chapter of the Prime Wars Trilogy is coming to a close. But, we’ve got Slugslinger which is really cool, he’s just been revealed over there [gesturing to display case], and so I guess we’ve got some really exciting things, fans should not be heartbroken.

    TB: Okay.

    JW: There’s some really cool stuff on the horizon, like literally we come to events like this to kinda listen to fans, we heard over and over again what fans want. One of those things is Rodimus Prime, alright, so we go back to the office, talked it over with Lenny and the designers, we’re like “We gotta bring Rodimus Prime, we gotta do it.” We’re always on message boards and Facebook posts, things like that.

    LP: Closing this chapter just means we can open up a new chapter, and another maybe trilogy, another maybe another story that we wanna tell, but a whole new way to play with Transformers in the Generations line.

    TB: Yeah yeah.

    LP: There’ll be more, new, cool insightful things that we’re looking forward to in the future.

    TB: Cool.

    JW: And just because this is the third installment of the trilogy, also we have more plans for things in the future; in fact Ashley said yesterday we had plans going all the way up to 2021, we’ve already plotted that far out.

    TB: That’s cool!

    JW: And we actually- we’re looking into ways to cross into the rich movieverse. So we’re really looking at all sorts of ways to address the needs of fans of all ages, and fans of all different universes of Transformers.

    TB: In the Google Hangout, you kinda mentioned that The Last Knight ends kinda short, like it’s done, it’s ending after the Nitro wave. Is there any other movie figures coming after that?

    LP: That’s after wave 2.

    TB: Right. And then Transformers Tribute, we’re just trying to figure out as fans, is there like an ongoing “Movie Generations”? Like in between movies? Is this Tribute that? Is there something else? Like where are we at with the ongoing movie stuff?

    JW: Sure, so as you guys know, 2017 isn’t just a year that marks the time of another Transformers feature film, Transformers: The Last Knight.

    TB: Sure.

    JW: It also marks the 10th anniversary of the original 2007 Transformers Movie. In celebration of that, we’ve got the Movie Masterpiece, which is starting to take a look at that original movie, and as we’ve heard from fans today at Comic Con and yesterday, they’re- people are so excited about those. There’s a segment that’s continued to energize that. The other thing we’re hearing loud and clear is that, there are a lot of movieverse characters we just haven’t touched on, and unfortunately right now it’s a little too early to get any kind of specific details about what’s in store for the future-

    LP: He’s not talking about the-

    JW: No no, the Tribute is truthfully- it’s an opportunity to bring fans the 2007 Optimus Prime that they might’ve remembered when they were kids, so Tribute in general is ways that we can y’know, go back to the vault and look at taking tools that might have awesome nostalgic value or really great play value, and bringing them to fans again.

    TB: So it’s a quick subline?

    LP: In a way. It’s like taking an old mold and really diving into it without any extra back pedaling, adding extra deco and getting the deco right, cause now that we have seven years of research on that character, there’s extra details that we may have missed the first time around that we can really embellish upon. It’s something that we whenever we do these anthology lines, it’s actually exciting as a designer that you can get in there and get a quintessential version of that character with that tool that’s actually a beloved tool. I mean you know, and that was when we as a brand had gotten a movie, a movie was born. And we were like “We gotta make these figures.” We were really learning a lot about transformation and how that all worked.

    TB: That changed the game-

    LP: It changed everything.

    TB: -having to figure out how to transform all that Michael Bay stuff into a toy.

    LP: Yeah, I would say that influenced a lot of Generations, and a lot of the kids’ stuff too because we looked at transformation in a whole new way. Like we started to realize there’s a more creative way to transform something and thinking about, instead of doing something right-side-up, do it upside-down- like understanding the origami of it essentially. So it was a BIG turning point for us.

    TB: Okay, cool cool.

    JW: And I guess in response to that, I wanna reiterate, we do have exciting news in store for the movieverse, and fans who wanna understand more about that should sign up for Hascon, cause we actually have some- well no see, it’s a plug, but in reality there are some awesome reveals planned for Hascon, yeah. So there’s reveals here, uh Power of the Primes, but there’s lots more comin at Hascon; and so fans of Power of the Primes AND movieverse should stay tuned cause there’s some cool stuff coming there.

    TB: I will be there! So – Robots in Disguise- is that continuing?

    JW: We’re excited to bring to life Combiner Force, which is the newest installment of Robots in Disguise, we recognize the fact that there’s a lot of Robots in Disguise out there, and the series is goin nice and strong, and it’s too early to talk about that right now, but yeah Combiner Force is our newest series.

    TB: Titan Masters in the Titans Return boxsets, what’s the deal with their names?

    JW: Oh the Siege on Cybertron set?

    TB: Yeah like the various boxsets.

    JW: Sure sure, yeah so those, when those sets were originally envisioned, the idea was to give fans kind of a cross-section of the ecosystem of Titans Return, and we kept back the names and the personalities of those Titan Masters, yes they do have names and personalities, they will be revealed on social media. Not coming today, probably soon. Um, so we wanted to kinda make a special thing out of it just to kind of talk about news and excitement about who those characters are. Fans might be excited and have a good laugh about the names of some of them, cause some of them are kinda digging a little deep in the lore, but yeah those are coming at a later time, yeah.
    And on a related note, the most recent Hasbro investors conference call had a few questions about the performance and direction of the Transformers toyline after the less-than-hoped performance of the movie in cinemas. (financial reporting slides from the presentation are at that link as well)

    TFW2005 sat down to participate live on another Hasbro Financial Call. What’s so interesting about the call this time is the fact that we are now looking at the outcome of Transformers: The Last Knight, since 2017 Q2 was allocated to the revenue of the movie, toys and licensed merchandise. Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner and Hasbro Vice President Debbie Hancock joined with us today. Despite the fact Hasbro had smooth sailing during the presentation, three journalists, back-to-back had one important question during the Q&A Session: “What Happened To Transformers: The Last Knight?”. We painstakingly transcripted all the info for you to read.


    Question 1: There seems to be a narrative that movie properties did not performed to expectations during the quarter which seems to be at odds with your commentary on the Transformers franchise [see after the jump]. Could you address how you see the the company’s position for the second half in terms of inventory level, shelf space and retailers dedicate to your brand?
    Brian Goldner: Entertainment continues to drive our business through and if you look at Transformers, we now have entertainment across multiple screens and in fact we are targeting and presenting stories to an infinite number of demographics around the brand. Certainly Transformers: The Last Knight products sold very well and POS was very strong. The brand is up considerably. And then of course we also have the Robots In Disguise products that’s around the television. We also have Universe product [he meant Generations] that’s focused on our fans. That is also selling incredibly well and there is of course preschool product Rescue Bots that is also selling quite well. So we are seeing a great sell-through around the brand, recognize that this is a brand that’s becoming Increasingly Global, Increasingly International. We’re seeing great growth in places like China around the brand and around our international market.


    Question 2: Can we go back to Transformers [movie] for a moment Brian because you mentioned the strength of Global POS (Point Of Sales) that is up significantly year-over-year and against 2014 which was your last movie year. I’m just wondering if we could take those comments and translate them into absolute dollars. Would it be fair to assume that The Last Knight could generate revenue higher than the 2014 movie, which you said at the time was kind of in-line with the 2011 movie?
    Brian Goldner: Yeah, I think Transformers is in fact it’s emblematic of what we’re doing across the company over the last three years; we have developed digital capabilities for stream content and putting content on a multitude of screens. That capability is really being born out in the Transformers business. So the overall [HUGE emphasis on the word] brand is performing at a much higher level than it was in 2014 in part that’s because the movie product is performing at a higher level than the prior year but also because we are seeing great growth in the Transformers: Generations products per fan-economy. And the Robots In Disguise product that’s been around the television. Television viewership is strong, our streaming on Netflix is very strong and then of course the fan oriented stream product that goes out on content that streams with Machinima. That’s how I look at it; as an expansion of storytelling. The brand did perform quite strongly in ’14 but also performed strongly in ’15 and ’16. This is clearly more in line with the movie year performance being up for the brand.


    Follow-up question: To clearly understand: Movie-To-Movie it seems like this movie is better and then you layer on kind of everything you do with your brand blueprint and how you kind of expand brands and then kind of putting it all together. The franchise in general has grown but the movie also seems better?
    Brian Goldner: Yeah, it is. The performance is good. Remember that that movie has continued to perform incredibly well globally outside the U. S. In China, we just surpassed 225 million dollars and the movie’s done more than 550 million dollars so far. It’s coming from a number of new areas of our capabilities that we’ve developed over the last three years.
    A question was asked by a journalist regarding the delay of royalty revenue (timing is off by at least a quarter) compared to entertainment releases (Franchise Brands such as Transformers). Debbie Hancock replied “For entertainment and licensing… typically when we have consumer product sales, we work with external third party licensees who take that product and make the T-Shirts and Backpacks and all the great things that are sold around our brand. Their revenue at retail for example could be in the second quarter and they wouldn’t report that to us until early in the third quarter so generally what we see with that is it’s about a quarter in arrears from when the sales actually occur at retail. With our entertainment this year with Transformers coming out in June and we have are My Little Pony movie coming in October, we would expect to see some of that revenue in the fourth quarter.“

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