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]. Send in your questions by July 15th.
Jakks Pacific products can be ordered on Entertainment Earth, BigBadToyStore, Megalopolis: City Of Collectibles, Hobby Link Japan, and Amazon.com.
1. Outside of the Underground and Ghost House Playsets releasing later this year, are more playsets for the 2.5” Super Mario line coming in the near future? Some themes I’d love to see include Desert, Snow, Jungle, Sky, the Odyssey ship or Bowser’s Airship.
The vision for the playset line is to have new sets each season to collect, play and display. So, yes we are going to continue to release them at a variety of price points each season. The Underground and Boo’s Mansion are the two new ones available this Fall and I believe that brings us to a total of nine playsets in all to date. They aren’t all listed at all retailers, so some are easier to find on line than at stores.
2. What’s the state of Nintendo franchises outside of Super Mario? Will we continue to see random rereleases/repaints of past products (The 4” Skyward Sword Link rerelease and the 6” UV Metroid repaint as examples), or will you eventually create some new products or characters? Collectors have a very high demand for franchises other than Mario.
As we have stated, Super Mario has been the focus of the line and will continue to be so, as the most popular franchise. We do look at the many other games past, present, and future to see where there is opportunity and we understand that there is demand for other franchises. When new games come out, we sometimes aren’t able to begin development until they are released and we have to make a call as to whether or not there will still be an interest a year or so after the release. Unfortunately we miss some opportunities as a result.
3. Is there any guarantee or plan that you will finish the Koopalings? They are probably the top requested characters for the Super Mario line, and with the set nearly halfway done, it would be unfortunate to never have the Koopalings complete. With 4” Ludwig’s release last year, 4” Iggy’s rerelease in Wave 20, and 2.5” Lemmy receiving a release soon, I have high hopes that this set will be completed soon so us collectors can finally have a 4” scale Koopaling collection.
As with all things, there are no guarantees. There are some limiters in the characters with the main one being the variance of sizes. It is difficult for us to make them all in the same line, have them at least be in relative scale, and achieve the price and value we have established for the product. We are trying to figure out more ways to creatively solve the issue, similar to how we made the six inch Bowser with the four inch Marion and the 2.5 inch Bob-Omb. So, it may not all be in the four inch or the 2.5 inch alone, but we are working on it and it will take some time.
4. My question is about the articulated 4 inch Sonic the Hedgehog figures as I’ve started to get into the Franchise and this line is a perfect way for me to start collecting Sonic figures of the characters I love. Will you maybe do a figure of Mephiles from Sonic (2006) at some point or is he something that’ll probably never be made as he’s one of my favourite villains and he has a very unique design?
Thank you for the suggestion. We are looking at everything and there are a lot of characters for us to make. We believe that the Bendy figures were a nice transition and something new for the franchise and our focus going forward is the articulated figures which we hope you will all enjoy. Of course, with the transition to articulated, we are essentially starting over with characters and have the core ones to develop in both Classic and Modern versions of Sonic. We are hopeful we are establishing a long run of product with Sega and are very excited about what comes out this year with the articulated four inch figures, the introduction of 2.5 inch figures and the Green Hills Zone playset, and there is much more to come for 2021.
5. Also do you maybe have any plans to do characters like Cream, Rouge and Omega as they’re characters that fans really want more figures of and I’d really like them alongside the rest of the cast?
Similar to the above, we always like to know what the fans are interested in. We can’t promise to make everything and we have to evaluate each introduction based on overall fan interest. These are the characters in the first two waves of four inch figures releasing this Fall. Wave One was planned for August, but I know some stores have started to receive product already. The articulated figures will flow in as the bendy figures sell through, so the timing will vary based on retailer and store location.
Modern Sonic
Modern Tails
Modern Dr. Eggman
Modern Shadow
Modern Knuckles
Modern Metal Sonic
Modern Sonic tooled variant