Next year CMF series ???

Kevin_Hyatt

I was thinking that with the LEGO Batman Movie coming out in February and the LEGO Ninjago Movie in the autumn we might get a CMF series for each of them just like the LEGO Movie did.

I'm probably clutching at straws with the Batman idea as I've heard all the arguments before about LEGO not having an action figure licence yadda yadda but it would be so cool to have alongside a wave of sets.

andhe

I've read rumours of Lego Batman CMF series to tie-in with the movie, but assuming they make sets as well, it wouldn't make financial sense to make the figures available as collectible figures rather than 'making' people buy the sets to get them. Though I guess you could put alternate versions eg Dressing Gown Batman (from the trailer) but would that interest kids?

Shib

Looking over the characters in the LEGO Movie CMF line I'd say chances of a Batman movie CMF line are remote. I really hope we get some good figures in sets tied to the film, they've definitely given all the villains shown so far a unique style for the film. I'm really hoping for a Clayface set along the lines of the Metalbeard duel set.

Ninjago CMF is much more likely to my mind.

Legopassion8

I dunno about a Lego Batman CMF release, but I really want that new Poison Ivy and pigtails Harley together in a set. Maybe something like this(I have a thirst!) Now...that's my kinda PIPE dream. Oh and Catwoman!

Legopassion8

Not just any Catwoman.... But a Catwoman with glow-in-dark-eyes(night vision)!

bandit778

Due to the amount of Batman minifigs already in existence and the high probability that he will appear an most /if not all the sets produced to go with the new Lego film, I don't like the chances of a 2017 CMF line having the "normal" Batman fig or DC regular heroes in it.
From a personal point of view though, it would be a great opportunity to perhaps do a 'Lego  Batman Movie' Rogues Gallery CMF line that enables TLG to produce some of the many villains that are regulars in the comic world, but don't get much air time because they are not part of the most recent live action film being produced.

Kevin_Hyatt

They managed to do two series of Simpsons CMF plus a couple sets so that was 3 homers for instance. I could see them managing to do alt Batman/Robin/female protagonist from the movie set ones. Then add a few side characters and a few extra villains and we are on to a winner.

SumoLego

^ Agreed.  It'll look like the Lego Movie CMF Series.

Final_Sign

They could do an entire batman CMF Series with nothing but 16 different batmans!  We could get pirate batman, caveman batman, space batman, scuba batman, black/blue/gray/pink/green batman!  It will be epic!  Because, you know, we don't have enough batmans in other sets as it is . . . right?  :p

SumoLego

^ Zombie Batman, Spider-Batman and Iron Batman.

And then the apocalypse.

sweetness34

Have to get some henchmen into the lineup for army building. 

If if they can't do a CMF line then maybe a superhero chess set would be a good way of getting some mini figures released. 

xwingpilot

Do TLG ever release CMFs for existing themes?

If they ever did a Star Wars series I wouldn't be able to resist...

madforLEGO

xwingpilot said:

Do TLG ever release CMFs for existing themes?

If they ever did a Star Wars series I wouldn't be able to resist...

I do not think that a Star Wars CMF series will never happen as long as Hasbro has the action figure license.

CCC

xwingpilot said:

Do TLG ever release CMFs for existing themes?

If they ever did a Star Wars series I wouldn't be able to resist...

Yes. The Simpsons. The Lego Movie.

Werewolf_poo

Oooooh a Star Wars CMF series would sell by the truckload.......will never happen though.

but then again I didn't think I would ever see a Disney CMF series either. 

Final_Sign

madforLEGO said:

xwingpilot said:

Do TLG ever release CMFs for existing themes?

If they ever did a Star Wars series I wouldn't be able to resist...

I do not think that a Star Wars CMF series will never happen as long as Hasbro has the action figure license.

So where do you draw the line?  TLG can release the buildable figures with close to 100 parts because they are a Lego set you have to build, but a CMF is an action figure that isn't allowed because its only 3-6 parts you have to put together?  I bet the lawyers have a real fun time ironing all that out.

Bricklover18

It would be nice if they could do a historical series.  With important people from history.  Like Lincoln, Columbus, and maybe even Churchill. 

HokieJoe99

If they need some ideas for what DC minifigures to make, LEGO could just ask the expert.

@Nathon_Rivers

madforLEGO

Final_Sign said:

madforLEGO said:

xwingpilot said:

Do TLG ever release CMFs for existing themes?

If they ever did a Star Wars series I wouldn't be able to resist...

I do not think that a Star Wars CMF series will never happen as long as Hasbro has the action figure license.

So where do you draw the line?  TLG can release the buildable figures with close to 100 parts because they are a Lego set you have to build, but a CMF is an action figure that isn't allowed because its only 3-6 parts you have to put together?  I bet the lawyers have a real fun time ironing all that out.

A 100 piece collection of parts is a set. A minifigure really is a single piece in the sense that the 3 parts make the figure, they do not make anything else (like I'm guessing the 100 piece set can). I believe it is the same reason why LEGO had to start gluing the minifigures to the magnets; LEGO cannot release Star Wars 'action figures' (ie minifigures as a standalone item). I'm not entirely sure how they get away with the poly bags that are out there. Maybe because they should be more a promo and not something sold outright (and TRU did not get the memo), or since they are super limited releases (and not a line per se) that LEGO can make poly bags with just a figure in it.
All I know is if LEGO could be making CMFs of the Star Wars line they likely would be doing so already because there are many obscure characters that I think would not easily fit into sets.
Finally it makes far more sense for LEGO to include characters of SW, Marvel, and DC, into sets that are 10-100 USD, and not in a pack that costs 3.99 USD.

Could it happen in the future? It would be neat and anything is possible, but I'm guessing people have been waiting for a CMF Star Wars line since the beginning of the CMF series. My advice? Do not hold your breathe.

SumoLego

I think Lego doesn't/hasn't released a SW CMF line because there is no reason to.

For minifigure collectors, they'd rather you (or someone) pay for a $79.99 for a full set to get a figure, rather than $3.99 for a blind bag.

I would consider the Disney CMF line as an outlier, but I'm sure the marketing folks didn't have much faith in moving an Alice in Wonderland set, or a Peter Pan set.

Less risk to test the market for something not tied to a current film, Frozen or Princesses...

catwrangler

Bricklover18 said:

It would be nice if they could do a historical series.  With important people from history.  Like Lincoln, Columbus, and maybe even Churchill. 

As a historical themes fan I'd love this, but I reckon they'd have to genericise them. They're always so careful to give any minfigs that reference culture generic names - like, there's that obvious Sherlock Holmes fig who's just called a Detective, and a Robin Hood who has a more generic name. I assume it's for the benefit of their global customers who may not know the reference (as well as letting them appeal to fans of various licensed properties without actually picking up the license - off the top of my head I can think of figs riffing on Xena Warrior Princess, Flash Gordon, Universal's version of Frankenstein's monster...), and presumably famous historical figures would have the same problem... 

Tkatt

SumoLego said:

^ Zombie Batman, Spider-Batman and Iron Batman.

And then the apocalypse.

In one of my favorite episodes of Batman Brave and the Bold, all these Batmen came together to stop an apocalypse.

madforLEGO

I wonder if there is a Doctor Who CMF series coming

Venunder

Dr Who cmf would make more commercial sense than a Batman cmf series.
Unless TLG plan to expand the Dr Who ideas set into a theme like they did for Minecraft?

But I am guessing this would depend on the sales for the first DW set.
It has not sold out like the Minecraft set. Although maybe TLG produced more Dr Who in the first production run?

The cost of the DW set is also against it selling out quickly.
Ordinary customers were happy to buy 2 or 3 Minecraft sets at £30, 
but are probably less likely to buy 2 or three DW at £50.
Except perhaps for resellers?
Equally resellers who did ok from Minecraft but not The Birds or TBBT may not be willing to invest in DW, now that almost every shop has stock of the Ideas sets?

Bosstone100

^ I think a Doctor Who CMF would be a tremendous risk. Go to US comic convention and you'll a find a few fans but that's about it. 

CCC

Venunder said:

Dr Who cmf would make more commercial sense than a Batman cmf series.
Unless TLG plan to expand the Dr Who ideas set into a theme like they did for Minecraft?

But I am guessing this would depend on the sales for the first DW set.
It has not sold out like the Minecraft set. Although maybe TLG produced more Dr Who in the first production run?

The cost of the DW set is also against it selling out quickly.
Ordinary customers were happy to buy 2 or 3 Minecraft sets at £30, 
but are probably less likely to buy 2 or three DW at £50.
Except perhaps for resellers?
Equally resellers who did ok from Minecraft but not The Birds or TBBT may not be willing to invest in DW, now that almost every shop has stock of the Ideas sets?

If there wasn't any demand by regular public then why would resellers buy? Resellers only buy sets where they think there will be profit. If the public aren't buying at £50 now, then they won't buy at £50+ later. 

chuckp

Bosstone100 said:

^ I think a Doctor Who CMF would be a tremendous risk. Go to US comic convention and you'll a find a few fans but that's about it. 

I agree with this. Doctor Who does not have the same US following as it does in the UK. The Ideas-style one offs make sense for DW here, but it's not mainstream enough to support a CMF line. 

pharmjod

LEGO released the GB Olympic team CMF only in GB and are doing the same for Germany with soccer players. No reason they couldn't do a CMF line for whatever region would best support Dr. Who if they think they can make money off of it. It doesn't even have to be sold in the USA.

SumoLego

^ Can we all agree that regional sets are a bad idea?  Bad, bad, bad idea.

And frankly, if the BBT only warranted a single set, it's been the #1 comedy sitcom in the US for a number years, there is no chance DW is getting anything other than a one-off set.

High risk, no reward.  They'd be much better doing a 2nd Series of Disney CMFs, or just a 'regular' Series 16...17... 

chuckp

To be clear, I'm not anti-Doctor Who, I was just agreeing with the fact that it's not very popular in the US. If LEGO actually thought they could make enough money to justify DW CMF line, global or regional, I'm sure they would do it.

I'm sure there are plenty of AFOLs both in the UK and US that would want them, but is DW popular enough with LEGO's real target market to justify a CMF line? 

catwrangler

I assume so - there's a DW magazine aimed at the same age group as the Lego Chima/Ninjago/Friends ones, and I've seen a lot of other children's merchandising around.

fourstud

I would not buy a LEGO Doctor Who CMF line. I don't think it would sell that well. Disney and Simpsons are a much better choice.

chuckp

Well now I'm somewhat curious, where does Doctor Who rate on the scale of sci-fi popularity in the UK? Obviously it had enough to justify an Ideas set and a Dimensions pack, but how does it stack up against Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, etc? 

catwrangler

It's a household name - I think that if you're from the UK and grew up at any time other than DW's long hiatus (which ended in 2005), you've got the concept of the alien timelord, his ship the TARDIS, and his famous enemies (everyone can do a dalek impression. everyone.) through pop culture osmosis even if you aren't personally a fan - sort of like how as an American (though not only American) kid growing up in the Star Wars era, you're going to know who Luke Skywalker is even if you didn't go to see his films. Also, DW was around from the 1960s originally, so it had decades to seep into British life. The stereotype is that you grew up watching it with your family from when you were a little too young for it, so you hid behind the sofa during the scary bits. 

Marvel by comparison is much less entrenched, I think - I was born in 1981, and though Marvel UK reprinted a lot of US stuff during my childhood, the UK had its own comics culture and US comics were more of a niche thing where you needed to be near a specialist shop to access it in its purest original form and widest range. I started collecting US Marvel comics in the mid-90s and had the impression from the ads, letters etc. that Marvel stuff in general was much more heavily merchandised and well known in the US than over here.

The movies really made Marvel stuff more widely known - couldn't tell you about DC, but when I was a kid I don't think the average man on the street would've had a sense that, for instance, there's these big two rival publishers and the few superheroes they've heard of (probably Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and the Incredible Hulk) belong to one or the other, or which belongs to which, or what kind of wider comics universe they inhabit... it's different now, of course, with the onslaught of the more recent movies, but the point I'm going for is just that DW's had a long, long time to be in the public consciousness, and for its iconography (the TARDIS, the theme tune) to be familiar even to people who don't watch it... whether that would translate into enough sales for minifigures is anybody's guess.

legobod

We used to sell loads of DW action figures when I used to work in a shop in the UK, so yes it is very popular with kids there, probably more so than adults. That could also be a reason for TLG not being allowed to do a series if they wanted to, depending on the licencing deals involved.
I'd rather see a Warner brothers or Universal studios series with minifigures from different films/TV programmes but can't see it happening.

CCC

One of the problems with Doctor Who is the number of incarnations. For me, he is Tom Baker. Who (!) was followed by one OK one and two complete dicks that put me off it. I've not watched the recent reboots, although have seen some of the earlier stuff - Pertwee was particularly good. Others will like other Doctors. So although I have strong memories of it, I wouldn't buy into sets containing some versions I have little time for.

dannyrww

My kids love Doctor Who....... In the circles I move in the Doctor is quite popular. They certainly released the Character Builder figures in large quantities in the US. I think Doctor Who sets and minifigures would sell, just not sure if they would sell at the typical retailers like Toys R Us and Target. I do feel Lego had bigger plans though. First of all it was odd when they announced that that they were taking Doctor Who submissions on Lego Ideas....this implied that they were already working on the license. Let's face Lego is mysterious about these things so we will never know. I also find it odd that when they released the set they did not include the 10th Doctor who is quite popular and they released the 12th Doctor in an outfit he only wore in the episode where he first regenerated. I feel like if they wanted this to be a one off set we would have got a couple more of the more popular Doctors too. They then made Doctor Who a fairly major part of Lego dimensions (I honestly think Peter Capaldi recorded more exclusive dialogue than anyone other than Elizabeth Banks and the voice actors who played Gandalf and Batman) with two exclusive minifigures and a few neat minibuilds (love K-9).  I guess my point is if they are not planning on doing more now I think they originally were. I personally hope we see more Doctor Who items, but only time will tell.

matticus_bricks

I think a Doctor Who CMF line would do fairly well. Off the top of my head, a really good lineup would have to include:
1) The 1st Doctor
2) The 4th Doctor
3) The 9th Doctor
4) The 10th Doctor
5) The 11th Doctor with mop and fez
6) The 12th Doctor with sonic sunglasses and guitar
7)Rose Tyler
8) Captain Jack Harkness
9) A different Cyberman
10) An Ood
11) A Sontaran Warrior
12) A Silurian/Madame Vastra
12) River Song
13) Amy Pond
14) Some incarnation of The Master
15) Sarah Jane
16) The Silence

I would immensely happy with this, though it still seems like a long shot. If I recall correctly, I think there is another company that makes blind bag figures of some sort for Doctor Who. 

chuckp

Sorry for "like"-bombing everyone, but there was some really good information above worthy of a like. I had no idea that Doctor Who was that popular in the UK, especially with kids. I would have never guessed that. 

legobod

It's mainly filmed in Wales and at least one part was in the town I was living in, a graveyard scene I believe about a weeping angel? I've never actually watched it but my niece has been watching it since she was about 5 or so probably

Shib

I'm not a massive Dr Who fan, but I would love to see it as a full theme. I think that a lot of what people would really want are the minifigures so a cmf line would probably be stronger than a full theme. Character Building who previously had the licence did a line of blind bag figures that spanned several series as well as army builder figure sets for daleks, cybermen etc.

while I wouldn't be surprised if LEGO was to announce a DW CMF, I don't expect it. The thing Character Building did with the licence was a pack which had just figures of each regeneration of the Doctor. If LEGO put out something similar I'd be all over that.

Realistically I think that next year we're likely to get standard series CMF, Disney series 2 and possibly Ninjago Movie.

sklamb

I'd give my teeth for a DW CMF series, or a set or two in addition to what we already have. I haven't watched the post-hiatus version, but I loved all 7 of the earlier Doctors--the Tom Baker version most, but all of them to one degree or another. It would be fun to have more of the Companions as well, including the Brigadier.

Unfortunately I must agree this isn't likely to happen--but I can still hope....

CCC

The other good thing that Character Building did was army building battle packs ...




I think these were under £2 per figure and could often be had for £1.25 or so per figure in sales.

brumey

SumoLego said:

^ Zombie Batman, Spider-Batman and Iron Batman.

And then the apocalypse.

you forgot zebra batman

brumey

other than that we need a "glen a larson CMF line" ...

michael knight
devon miles
dr bonnie barstow
reginald cornelius
hannibal 
BA
face
murdok
colt seavers
howie munson
jody banks
buck rogers
magnum pi
al mundy
walter nibicher (automan)
highwayman
colonel steve austin



GIT GUD

brumey

oh darnit .  A TEAM wasn't made by glen a larson! shame on me

SumoLego

Don't tease the forum with a suggestion of a Magnum P.I. minifigure...

dannyrww

Some classic Battlestar Galactica in there would be nice: Cylon, Adama, Apallo, a male Starbuck, A daggit maybe.

catwrangler

I was just thinking about building a daggit recently! Also doing some custom Hannibal figures...

Pitfall69

dannyrww said:

Some classic Battlestar Galactica in there would be nice: Cylon, Adama, Apallo, a male Starbuck, A daggit maybe.

The great thing about making a Cylon; is that there would be chrome goodness. 

I had many of the classic "Battlestar Galactica" toys when I was a child; including both the Cylon Raider and Colonial Viper that actually shot. Later in the production run, they removed the shooting feature because of safety reasons. This happened the same time as the missle firing Boba Fett...that was never released.

CCC

^ He'd probably be pearl instead of chrome. :-(