[Kamen Rider Lucha]

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Originally Posted by Dizagaox

Unless I'm wrong, those last three are on backburners. Mask is the only focus now, followed by Action Man. GI Joe seems to have got a new screenwriter but it's not yet happening.

The release dates for GI Joe (March 2020), Micronauts (Oct 2020), and D&D (July 2021), along with an untitled Hasbro movie (Oct 2021) were announced in December. I find it hard to believe that Paramount and Hasbro would have changed all of those dates to focus on MASK in the four months since without every trade in Hollywood catching wind of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dizagaox

The Transformers movie toys are still their #1 product line. The issue is the films are, you know, kinda shite and not what they envisioned when they licensed the rights to Steven Spielberg in the first place.

It doesn't matter if TF is still their number one product line if it didn't live up to their earning projections. And yes, one reason for that is the movies suck, so kids don't care. It's all connected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dizagaox

I'm a freelance brand consultant for Playmates, who are a Chinese/HK toy company that has the master license for various kids entertainment brands. They have no UK office so I act as a middleman between UK-specific licensees and retailers and their main HQs. I used to work on TMNT, then moved over to Voltron: Legendary Defender, and now I'm just squarely focused on launching my media marketing agency so don't really have time to do much. I consult for Toy Wiz every now and then. The brand licensing stuff I fell into accidentally with Bandai, where I held the UK license to Figuarts and supplied mostly DBZ merch to indie vendors and convention scene. I've become good friends with lots of people in the London/Brighton scene as a result.

Gotcha. Well, that's certainly not nothing, as far as access to insider gossip is concerned.

So if you're right about Toei not licensing anything beyond Ninninger, that makes me sort of worried about the future of Super Sentai.

TBH, I haven't really cared about Power Rangers since like, 2001. Sentai has been my #1 jam pretty much ever since then. Depending on how much PR revenue was used to fund production on Sentai, the lack of PR licensing money could impact that show. So... I'm hoping that Hasbro is able to reestablish a working relationship with Toei, for Sentai's sake. Though it's extremely possible that, in light of the buy out, Toei refused to license further shows because they knew Hasbro -- one of Bandai's main competitors -- was likely to take over.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dizagaox

But you're wrong on how buyouts work, it's been announced now and it's from here on they work out logistics for all third parties to transfer/return rights, etc.

That said, Hasbro has had IDW working on Power Rangers for a little while. Enough for us to begin seeing reboot timeline material from October. It's more than just the comics. What I was told at BLE 2017 was IDW writers are now involved in all storytelling for Hasbro, and their reboot will be the new timeline all the franchises follow.

I think we're both wrong, insofar as there being one way all large buyouts work.

All I'm saying is, if Hasbro is in charge of the Beast Morphers toy line, the Beast Morphers show, and the Power Rangers comics (which you're saying Hasbro's IDW team is already working on), Hasbro's creatives had to have been working on this stuff for a while. Which means that people in Hasbro's toy department, their TV production department (and associated production companies), and at IDW have known they were taking over the property since AT LEAST the beginning of work on Beast Morphers.

I guess it's possible that Hasbro is simultaneously working on an animated show to debut after Beast Morphers (considering how much longer it takes to make an animated show), and Beast Morphers might be positioned as some sort of big wrap-up to the live-action iteration of PR. It's distinctly possible.

The one remaining thing that makes me question any decision to cease production on the live-action front would be Hasbro's repeated desire to appeal to adult collectors. Will adult collectors be at all interested in a Power Rangers that isn't a live action adaptation of Sentai? I think the answer is no, based on the fan response to your propositions. But then again, Hyperforce and the PR comics have been a wild success, and they're not live action stories, so who knows.

I think the point of my long, winding post is that we're in a period of great uncertainty, where anything is possible and nothing is actually known. It's kind of exciting (I mean, here I am posting about Power Rangers, a show I purport to vehemently dislike ) but also sorta scary.