Diamond Select Toys posted the next round of fans questions for their Minimates line:
It’s time for another exciting chapter of Ask DST, with Diamond Select Toys president DSTChuck! This week, all of the questions are about Minimates, including Aliens, Mass Effect, Star Trek and of course Marvel. So if you are addicted to those little 2-inch mini-figures, or are considering becoming addicted, read on for the inside answers from the big boss man himself, then submit your own question, via the drop-down form above, or by sending a letter here!
John L.
Marvel Series 60 is being met with heaps of praise for offering X-Men characters in common uniforms as well as accessories to create other X-characters to flesh out the team. Alternate versions of the villains are a definite plus. It makes me want to buy at least two of each set, maybe even a whole case. Given the similarly common uniforms, is this something that could be done with a future STAR TREK assortment? For example, a Data Minimate with an extra Worf head, Sash, and hands to create that character as well? A Riker Minimate with parts to also make a Geordi Minimate? Romulans with alternate noggins?
DSTChuck: Right now John it’s just an experiment, it might not be something we do again, at least not for some time. There is no discussion at this time to apply this to Trek, and based on sales of the last Trek series, there might not be sales to support the cost that goes with it.
Brian F.
With the recent Inhumanity storyline and the Attilian Rising series coming next year, as well as the buzz for an Inhumans movie, Black Bolt, Medusa, and their plucky gang of D-listers are clearly climbing the Marvel food chain in a big way, like the Guardians of the Galaxy before them. Are there any plans to finally give this fan-favorite group the box set they’re due? We already have Black Bolt and Lockjaw, and Medusa taking center stage in a lot of the current stories could make her the anchor for a set with Maximus, Gorgon, and Triton. Whaddaya say?
DSTChuck: It’s possible. There is nothing in the works right now, but 2016 is still a bit ahead.
Doc B.
Any chance you would translate the amazing original Van Hellsing design you guys made as a Select into a minimate?
DSTChuck: You know, I never thought of that – so glad you like it, though. I suppose if we’re lucky enough to add more characters to the line, we would do something for Minimates down the road.
David E.
DST! It’s been a while. Many moons ago I was a poster on the trektoy.com forum website but it got a little heated and since then I’ve really only been collecting QMx Star Trek. Recently I saw a few of your Star Trek minimate Enterprise ship on sale at Forbidden Planet UK! This resulted in me scouring ebay/amazon to find what else you’d been doing and thus I now have both the US and UK Trek minimate sets coming! I’m Really REALLY loving these Enterprises! Any chance we’ll see more in the way of Star Trek Minimates and ships to go with them such as TNG ships? Personally I’d love to see some characters that we’ve never gotten before like Odo and Worf… There’s countless characters really!! Also, is it possible we could see these licenses being turned into Minimates? DC Comics/TV/Movies, Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit, Power Rangers, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Jurassic Park/World, Sherlock – Just realized I’m just pointing out all the amazing properties out there. Anyway keep up the great work and I hope someday we’ll see Minimates based on the new movies by JJ Abrams… I mean Roberto Orci?
DSTChuck: David – so glad you like them, and welcome back! We did design up a Minimate shuttle, so we’d love to be able to put more ships out. Hopefully, we can find the support to do that. Everyone here would love to be able to do more Trek Minimates, too, so we’re trying!
Rickey G.
Will you be making Power Rangers minimates for the upcoming reboot? (I don’t have any ideas, I’m just curious).
DSTChuck: Right now, we have no plans for Power Rangers – sorry.
Cory C.
Are there any plans for a Kaidan Alenko minimate?
DSTChuck: Sorry, no plans .
Eli B.
Can you please make The Big Lebowski minimates?
DSTChuck: That would be COOL! I’d like a set… we’ll have to see, though. It’s very hard to sign a license to JUST make Minimates from a property.
Gavin H.
First off Love the Minimates. But I was wondering, back in 2013 when you did the Deadpool’s Assemble! Box set, you did four popular heroes. For an upcoming exclusive or just a regular set, would you be willing to do a villian version of the set say…
-Deadpool M.O.D.O.K.
-Deadpool Galactus
-Deadpool Doc Ock
-Deapool Doctor Doom?
Just a suggestion :]
DSTChuck: I can tell you they are tossing around a bunch of DP ideas right now, so I would not count anything out.
Dante W.
Hi, will there be plans to obtain the Minimates license for future Avengers and Captain America/Thor films?
DSTChuck: We’ve been very fortunate to be able to work on most of the Marvel movies of the past, so we’d love for that to continue for all their future movies. We’ve already solicited our first assortment for Age of Ultron!
Fernando F.
We are finally seeing the alien mini mates and they are great, but when the line was first announced you had mentioned the possibility of vehicles. Are those still a possibility? My other question is about timing. It seems we go months without any new product and then get slammed all at once with various releases. Is this something that is out of your hands or control? Finally, what can you say to us about the agent 88 kick starter that disappointed many of your fans by not delivering the rewards?
DSTChuck: Yes, vehicles for Aliens would still be possible. You would have to be more specific in your question about delays for me to give a specific answer, but I can tell you when the year starts we plan out all the MM we want to do, even if its just series numbers to start, and try to space each property out and how many overall releases we have in a given month. Then the number of variables in the process come into play, and those plans get messed with. For Agent 88 you have to direct all those questions at the folks behind the movie.
Michael G.
Marvel is pumping event after event so what are the chances we get Axis AND Spider-verse Minimates??
DSTChuck: We try to do Minimates around as many of the Marvel events as we can, and we try to pick the ones that make sense. Sometimes it’s very hard to time production with the event, and we don’t want the product to come out so far after the event that it does not make sense.
Brian M.
I just picked up some of the new TMNT minimates and they are great. I was wondering if DST’s license includes the current comics (IDW) and classic (Mirage)? Also, do you plan on making Minimates from them or just sticking with the current TV show?
DSTChuck: We have a pretty broad-reaching license, but I’m not sure how much of what we will be able to tackle yet.
Kostis F.
I have to say, when the Mass Effect minimates were announced, I was over the moon. The ME world is my favourite fictional universe and I’ve invested about 200 hours on the series, not counting the time spent on the comics, books, fan-art,etc. Now, I still haven’t bought my case (the bane of every international customer, SHIIIPIING LIMITATIONSSS!!) but from the in-hand pics I’ve seen, they look bloody great. So, my question is, how far do your plans go? I obviously want and will buy everything, from uniform variations to army builders and minor characters like Kirahe. Also, I’m in the process of creating a Mass Effect corner in my room (the top shelf for the upcoming 1/6 figures from threezero and a 3 meter glass case for the minimates) and part of that, is creating a couple key scenes from the games as dioramas, so I was wondering whether there are any plans for a couple of vehicles. To summarize, I just want to say thank you for making my most wanted license a reality (yes, even more than DC and Star Wars) and I wish that it continues even when the new games hit. Good luck DST, I know that I’ll be doing my part to support this line (I usually buy one of each, but I can’t risk this ending before the new trilogy starts and missing out on characters, so I’ll be buying as many cases as my budget allows)! PS: Any hints on what we should expect at series 2? Maybe a couple of army builders in the blind bags as well as new characters and Shepard variations?
DSTChuck: Glad you like them! We’d love to go as long as fan support is there. We’re very fortunate GameStop wanted to take a chance on these, so we have the distribution to make this work – now they just need to sell out of the stores. I can tell you for sure planning has started on series 2, but we have not talked about vehicles yet. Thanks for the support.
Antroy R.
Hello, Thank you for making the Mass Effect line, loyal fans such as myself are delighted that there is something else to collect from the Greatest Game ever! My question is why do the figures not show up on the website? I would like to order some more and can’t find them. Please help and thank you. P.S. for Series 2, please consider: Kaidan Alenko, EDI, Thane Krios, Mordin Solus, Grunt, Justicar Samara, Kai Leng, Javik, and Admirals Anderson and Hackett. Thanks!
DSTChuck: For now the line is exclusive to Game Stop, they stepped up and made a major commitment to the line that allowed us to go forwards. Down the road, I would expect other outlets will have different figures, but for now they are only sold through GameStop and their website.
Got a question for DSTChuck? Submit your own question via the drop-down form up top, or by sending a letter here!