Does anyone know how you obtain property licenses to produce toys? IE- How do you go to Warner Brothers to get a license to produce Batman toy figures?

 

Basically you write to DC comics. They are the owners to the characters etc. I think they should tell you where to go from there. Hope this helps.

 

I used to design toys for LEGO, and my buddy is over working on the new Batman series....its kind of tough. The way things work are like this:

Hasbro announces that they want a new line of action figures....they put up an offer and the animation companies put up bids...almost like an auction. They make "pitches" towards Hasbro, showing off, if you will, what they can do. In this case, WB says, ok, we can do Batman. Hasbro says fine.

In other words, its the toy/merchandise industry that drives the animation tv animation industry because each episode is like a 1/2 hour commercial. The story behind Batman Beyond is this:

Hasbro approaches WB due to the recent success they had earlier on with Batman: The Animated Series. Since the series was loosing steam, they asked WB to come up with a new concept so they can fire off a whole new line of BAtman. WB came up with Batman Beyond, and Hasbro released the figures for it.

The same thing went for "The Batman"...WB's latest offering. Hasbro says: "Oi!! We need new stuff!!" and WB responds.


When I was a toy/concept designer at LEGO, it was the other way around. When a new large, movie is coming out, the company (Sony, DreamWorks, Disney Etc..) puts up booths at Trade Shows (similar to comic con, E3). Here they advertise the movie, hoping toy/soda/foods/clothing/merchandising companies want in on the action. For example, LEGO was torn between LOTR or Harry Potter (of course all the toy/concept designers wanted LOTR )but marketing felt that Harry Potter was more lego material , so at the end Harry won LEGO over.

In your case, depending on the size of the property, a pitch full with design concepts, sculpted samples and business proposals are sometimes required up front (after they sign a non-disclosure and etc..) before they even want to hear from you...especially if your a no-namer in the industry. Hope that helps.

 

i must say the star wars legos are the coolest things since burnt bread.

 

Can you believe that they outsold the primary market? (action figures, playsets)

Lego along with the boardgames, video games and etc. are consdiered secondary merchandising markets compared to the main action figures.

 

oh yea definitely.. i wouldnt be surprised... even non-star wars fans bought them because they were cool.. who wouldnt want a lego darth vader? specially the technics destroyer droid...