Craig Drobis is the SVP of Marketing for boys action figures and collectors for Jakks Pacific. Craig will be answering your questions for all Ask Jakks submissions. ToyHypeUSA will be sending him monthly questions and we will have your answers back on or around the beginning of each month. Send us your questions to [email protected] by November 30th.
Jakks Pacific products can be ordered on Entertainment Earth, BigBadToyStore and Amazon.com.
1. Will Jakks consider making classic Disney characters as part of the new licensing agreement with Disney, including some long sought after requests for characters from Gargoyals, Darkwing Duck, and Duck Tales?
The agreements we have are usually very specific with regard to properties and products we can produce. The most recent announcement was regarding the Incredibles and the Incredibles 2 movie that we are making toys for next year. There are other divisions of Jakks that also have deep relationships with Disney but I am not aware of anything like you mention.
2. Will Jakks be offering products from Solo: A Star Wars Story with characters not previously offered in the Big Figs line-up?
It is going to be a very busy year for the Star Wars franchise. We are currently focused on our Stars Wars: The Last Jedi line of Big Figs which are on shelf now. Additional waves of those figures and any other Star Wars properties will have to wait until next year.
3. Are any new DC Comic based figures coming in the Big Figs line for first half of 2018? Female characters such as Supergirl, Huntress, Cheetah, or others planned at this time?
At this time, we are focused on the Justice League figures which are on shelf now. We are extremely proud of how the how line turned out. However, at this point there are no additional DC Comic Big Figs with female characters in development beyond the Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn previously released.
4. Any possibility of doing 18″ boba / Han in carbonite 2 pack , would be fairly simple , a lot of plastic but very little post mold work? 18 inch Jango, boba 2 pack would also be good.
Those are some really good ideas that we will definitely consider. Right now there are no plans, but I like it.
5. Has Jakks considered doing their own online toy shop to continue the 31” Star Wars Big Figs line? This way they can sell directly to the consumer such as Hasbro’s HasbroToyShop?
Jakks certainly reviews and considers some of the tactics that other toy companies use to distribute their products. We have had a direct to consumer business in the past, but chose to focus our efforts on supporting the retailers both on and off line that support the company. The Big Figs Massive definitely have a retail merchandising challenge that we have tried to solve. We continue to look for options and this is a good idea for us to consider however at this time Jakks isn’t building an online toy shop.