Rise of the TMNT toy speculation/discussion/announcement thread

[Zulithe]

Originally Posted by DevilSpooky

LEGO had the rights for TMNT before and it flopped hard, don't expect them to waste money on the property again any time soon.

And no, I do not believe this is the right thread for it.

It wasn't a flop at all. The theme got two waves for the cartoon and one wave for the live action movie reboot. That's really good for one of their non-tentpole licenses, which often get 1 to 3 sets and nothing else.

I think what happened is the LEGO Group picked up TMNT around the time they were phasing out Ninjago, but they then changed their mind and brought it back. Ninjago was planned as a three year theme and began in 2011, with TMNT entering near the end of that 3 years.

The two themes are too similar, and their in-house brands are way more profitable for them so there was no room for TMNT. Anything is possible, but I doubt TMNT would return to LEGO unless they cancel Ninjago again. (Kinda hope that happens so TT games will give us a LEGO TMNT game)

The LEGO TMNT sets good by LEGO standards, and will be sought after by collectors in years to come. More so than the Mega stuff IMO.

If Mega is going to make sets based on Rise, they have probably been feeling out the market for the demand over the last year or so to see if it would be much of a success.


Anyway... I've been watching the toy isles for a couple weeks hoping to pick up the turtles and villains from the battle shell wave, but I swear, nobody is stocking TMNT stuff right now. There's like two pegs of Rise TMNT at most of my stores now. It's almost removed entirely.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Zulithe

Anyway... I've been watching the toy isles for a couple weeks hoping to pick up the turtles and villains from the battle shell wave, but I swear, nobody is stocking TMNT stuff right now. There's like two pegs of Rise TMNT at most of my stores now. It's almost removed entirely.

Same. I have zero interest in the line, but I do check out the aisle they're in just to see how it's doing out of curiosity, and apparently the answer is "Not well". At Target over here, they generally have about 4-8 regular figures on display - less than two pegs worth - and 2-4 of the larger ones, whatever they're called, and a couple of the Turtles' vehicle. The vehicles never move, the larger figures never move, but occasionally someone buys a regular-sized figure. That's the only action at that particular store.

Wal-Mart has a slightly larger display area with a little bit more stock, but again, months go by without anyone hardly touching anything.

At both stores, every single item has had a marked-down sticker on it since Christmas.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what the lowest-performing TMNT toy series was, so far? I'd wager it was either the 2007 movie toys, or either of the recent live-action movies' lines (the stores around here had a TON of the BayTurtles figures and they never moved at all). But from over here, it looks like this line has to be a "contender". I just have no idea how badly those other lines did. I only know they couldn't have done great.

[IndigoErth]

The stuff for the last two films sold relatively well in my area initially...until interest slowed too many weeks after film release and they became a bit too saturated. But then Christmas came and cleaned out the aisle.

'Rise' around here has never even sold as the movie stuff did initially. Except for Christmas, my Walmart has had a consistent small section of them that doesn't seem to change density all that much. And that's with passing by it once a week when I'm there for my job, because it's right by the stockroom and I always take a glance at it. Little to nothing changes.

To be fair, maybe they're just good at keeping it stocked, esp since the battle shells have newly been added to the hooks... but that is odd for this store to actually be on top of keeping something stocked.

Originally Posted by Zulithe

I think what happened is the LEGO Group picked up TMNT around the time they were phasing out Ninjago, but they then changed their mind and brought it back. Ninjago was planned as a three year theme and began in 2011, with TMNT entering near the end of that 3 years.

Ohhh, that makes sense.

I was always just slightly annoyed at this Ninjago thing competing for ninja themed attention. Hmph. lol

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

To be fair, maybe they're just good at keeping it stocked, esp since the battle shells have newly been added to the hooks... but that is odd for this store to actually be on top of keeping something stocked.

A distinct possibility in some cases, but definitely not the case at the Target over here.

I'm the kind of dummy who pays close attention to things like packaging nicks/dings/tears, price tag sticker placement, paint chips or other painting irregularities, etc. I've been told that I have an irritatingly keen eye for detail. As in, "Hey, you, you ever notice that your one nostril is about 6% wider than the other one?" "Dude, just shut the f*ck up." I'm That Guy.

I notice things, in other words. These are definitely the same figures, not re-stocked ones. I'unno why I look at and pay close attention to those things, I just do. I do it with the DC and WWE and other toys I peruse, as well. "Huh... looks like that Shazam figure with the crossed eyes is still there... yeesh, that Wonder Girl with the nick in the corner of the box has been sitting there for 9 months..." and so on.

The best is when they put something on Clearance, and it doesn't move, so they put it back into the regular full-price rotation, and sometimes you can still see some glue residue where they scraped off the yellow sticker before putting a regular price tag back on it. I'm like "Y'all ain't slick, mu'f*kka." Happens a lot at this place.

[IndigoErth]

lol I've always been pretty detailed oriented, but I think you've got even me beat.

Though in my prior job in a store I DID occasionally have to remove clearance stickers from items that were accidentally marked. Though on a rare occasion the company (not the store) seemed to un-clerance something in the system, so it's not unheard of. Could have been a corrected mistake though.

[Sobble]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

The stuff for the last two films sold relatively well in my area initially...until interest slowed too many weeks after film release and they became a bit too saturated. But then Christmas came and cleaned out the aisle.

'Rise' around here has never even sold as the movie stuff did initially. Except for Christmas, my Walmart has had a consistent small section of them that doesn't seem to change density all that much. And that's with passing by it once a week when I'm there for my job, because it's right by the stockroom and I always take a glance at it. Little to nothing changes.

To be fair, maybe they're just good at keeping it stocked, esp since the battle shells have newly been added to the hooks... but that is odd for this store to actually be on top of keeping something stocked.


Ohhh, that makes sense.

I was always just slightly annoyed at this Ninjago thing competing for ninja themed attention. Hmph. lol

Heck idk. If this is just low sells or rise figures getting overstocked and idk which side to really choose

[Dragnskull]

Originally Posted by Zulithe

I think what happened is the LEGO Group picked up TMNT around the time they were phasing out Ninjago, but they then changed their mind and brought it back. Ninjago was planned as a three year theme and began in 2011, with TMNT entering near the end of that 3 years.

The two themes are too similar, and their in-house brands are way more profitable for them so there was no room for TMNT. Anything is possible, but I doubt TMNT would return to LEGO unless they cancel Ninjago again. (Kinda hope that happens so TT games will give us a LEGO TMNT game)

I admit I don't know much about lego brands / Ninjago, but googling the line and looking at various sets I don't see much similarity beyond using the word "ninja". Theyre very arguably extremely different when comparing them to one another imo

[tipet]

Originally Posted by Oculus Orbus

I can't speak for everywhere in Europe, but Rise of the TMNT toys never made it to Spain nor France.

Not true. The Poly store has them for a while.

[Oculus Orbus]

Originally Posted by tipet

Not true. The Poly store has them for a while.

Oh, nice! I've been looking around and never saw them anywhere (this shop is new to me). So do you know if they are being distributed to more shops?

[Zulithe]

Originally Posted by Dragnskull

I admit I don't know much about lego brands / Ninjago, but googling the line and looking at various sets I don't see much similarity beyond using the word "ninja". Theyre very arguably extremely different when comparing them to one another imo

They are both martial arts oriented themes with high asian culture influence... both feature "sentai" type elements.. sure they are very different in ways, but they are way more similar than say, Ninjago and Star Wars or Ninjago and Spongebob.

I also don't want to suggest that LEGO TMNT would have kept going for a long time if not for Ninjago... there's so many factors, like the overall lack of enthusiasm for the live action tmnt reboot movies. But if not for the focus needing to be more on Ninjago, we could have had more options on the table. Like a Direct to Constumer LEGO Technodrome in the Fred Wolf style, things of that nature.

I would argue that the existence of Ninjago in popular culture (toys/tv/movies) has kind of hindered modern iterations of TMNT (2k12/platinum dunes movies/Rise) from reaching the heights it might otherwise have been able to.

[IndigoErth]

I'm only sad that it means that there probably won't be any more Turtle cameos (or actual starring/supporting roles would be cool) in Lego movies.

[Browne762]

Early last week my normal "go to" Walmart restocked TMNT figures after they completed their inventory. One case, all Wave 1 turtles.

Then this morning, they received in another box. I was excited assuming it was finally some Wave 2 products. The Department Manager gave me the box to open. Wave 1 again. Splinters, Meat Sweats, Origami Ninjas and an April.

Now they have two cases of Wave 1 figures to move before they get anything again.



All my local Targets have 1-4 figures on their pegs with a couple having the Tank. Been that way for 6+ weeks. That's all they have and no signs of anything new. Seems like they stopped getting anything once the Lair went on clearance so maybe Target cut the product line off at that time? Meanwhile they cant keep up the Marvel figure demands.

[Sobble]

Originally Posted by Browne762

Early last week my normal "go to" Walmart restocked TMNT figures after they completed their inventory. One case, all Wave 1 turtles.

Then this morning, they received in another box. I was excited assuming it was finally some Wave 2 products. The Department Manager gave me the box to open. Wave 1 again. Splinters, Meat Sweats, Origami Ninjas and an April.

Now they have two cases of Wave 1 figures to move before they get anything again.



All my local Targets have 1-4 figures on their pegs with a couple having the Tank. Been that way for 6+ weeks. That's all they have and no signs of anything new. Seems like they stopped getting anything once the Lair went on clearance so maybe Target cut the product line off at that time? Meanwhile they cant keep up the Marvel figure demands.

I'm here to say that your Walmart might get wave 2 figures in 2181

[TMNTFanatic4Life]

I finally saw some of wave 2 last week. It was the Battle Shell figures, but I was hoping to find Foot Lt. and Alberto.....guess those will come in another few months. But it took almost 7 months since the debut of wave 1 to finally see a new wave here in southeastern WI.

[Browne762]

I found Foot Lt and Alberto in December, but have yet to see any Battle Shells. Hopefully they are just going to be out everywhere soon. Amazon had a four pack of the Battle Shells listed as in stock a few weeks ago, but I didn't order and have not looked again since then. I would rather find them in store to I can pick the best paint job.

On the Playmates website they show the Donatello Jet Pack and Spider Shell as available too, but I don't think anybody has reported seeing those yet.

[Sobble]

Originally Posted by Browne762

I found Foot Lt and Alberto in December, but have yet to see any Battle Shells. Hopefully they are just going to be out everywhere soon. Amazon had a four pack of the Battle Shells listed as in stock a few weeks ago, but I didn't order and have not looked again since then. I would rather find them in store to I can pick the best paint job.

On the Playmates website they show the Donatello Jet Pack and Spider Shell as available too, but I don't think anybody has reported seeing those yet.

Thw Donatello jet pack and spider shells are chase figures (POSSIBLY MEANING RARE) according to playmates toy fair 2019 panel for rise figures

[METALHEAD]

i find it odd how battle shell raph is hard to find weird.

[Sobble]

Originally Posted by METALHEAD

i find it odd how battle shell raph is hard to find weird.

Late reply I know but if you went to a Walgreens in February 2019 you'd probably see battleshell raph

I wish I went there in February 2019

It's also probably a chase figure

[useasneeded4pain]

This line feels super, duper dead. The Targets near me have 1-2 pegs max (all wave 1) and clearanced the Sewers after Christmas. Most Walmarts are sitting on tons and tons of wave 1, too.

[BlueKatana]

Originally Posted by useasneeded4pain

This line feels super, duper dead. The Targets near me have 1-2 pegs max (all wave 1) and clearanced the Sewers after Christmas. Most Walmarts are sitting on tons and tons of wave 1, too.

Same. Really surprised by lack of new releases.