Toy Bender

That’s it, the Indiana Jones toy line is as good as dead. Cool Toy Review’s questions to Hasbro regarding the line pretty much a confirmation that the Indiana Jones toy line is over:

Cool Toy Review: Is the German Mechanic figure shown in the second Raiders of the Lost Ark wave scheduled for January going to include any accessories (wrench, removable hat and shirt etc…)?

Also, would it be possible to see a picture of the stands that will be included in this wave as well as Mola Ram without his head dress?

Hasbro: Right now, we are not going to be revealing any more details or information on this wave due to the likelihood that it will not make it out.

Cool Toy Review: What is your internal “doomsday date” to determine the future of the Indiana Jones line at retail? Or, what specific date in the coming months is the “point of no return” for Indy’s future? Will there be enough time to “rescue” the line to produce and distribute post-Temple Of Doom/Wave 4 if the Indy line indeed starts to sell at a faster pace?

Hasbro: Right now, it’s highly unlikely that the line will continue significantly beyond the holidays this year.

The writing is pretty much on the wall for this one, kids. If you’re not familiar with why the line is tanking, I’ve worked out the reasons.* This is also an expansion of a comment I made on a Topless Robot post that put the blame on collectors for the death of the line.

Also, please keep in mind that there’s a good amount of conjecture, but I’m willing to bet that I’m right on my educated guesses.

1. Hasbro oversold the line to retailers. The thinking had to be that Indiana Jones is a huge franchise that was dormant for some time, so collectors would go out in droves and buy toys based on the films. This was combined with the fact that kids would be seeing the new movie and would want toys based on it. So in turn, almost every store in the U.S. ordered loads of Indiana Jones related toys in expectation that they’d sell quickly. It was insane; there were entire four way aisle displays at Wal-Mart stuffed with them in addition to dedicated hooks in the action figure aisle. To contrast this, the 25th Anniversary of Joe figures had to prove they were worthy of some dedicated peg hooks through sales. Likewise, the Star Wars brand proved through six movies that it could sell through a large amount of figures during a theatrical release.

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull didn’t perform as well as expected. Sure it pulled some pretty big numbers at the box office, but there were so many people disappointed in the film that it didn’t carry over into as an enormous hunger for merchandise as was likely predicted.

3. Oil prices soared to record highs, so the figures debuted at a high price and would only go up.

4. The sculpting on the first run of figures was simply terrible. Indiana Jones didn’t look like Harrison Ford in most of the figures, which is pretty pathetic. This was due to the fact that a new factory had taken over production in China and they were taking awhile to catch up to the levels collectors demanded and expected in their modern toys. This could have caused some collectors to not buy any of the first figures until they were “fixed” in the later waves.

5. The initial waves were overloaded with figures that collectors didn’t care about, especially since The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull underperformed (See issue: #2). Most collectors didn’t care about a Mutt Williams figure if they hated the film and even if they did like the movie, they wanted more figures from the original trilogy than what was being offered. Meanwhile, kids that were into the line could only have so many Mutt Williams toys at a time.

6. The line had to compete against Hasbro’s other 3 3/4th” lines in a time when they were going very strong. G.I. Joe was super hot and with the increase of toys, many collectors might have had to cut back and be more picky when buying figures. A line containing bad sculpts and a selection of characters they cared nothing about might have helped their buying decisions.

7. Waves that contained action figures based on some of the most desired characters from the original Indiana Jones films came out very late and were impossible to find, due to the pegs being full of all the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull figures. Retailers had no incentive to order more figures when they were already overloaded with ones that had been collecting dust for several months.

While there were many factors at work here, I put most of the blame on Hasbro and this is coming from one of the biggest Hasbro boot lickers around. Indiana Jones toys should never of had a Star Wars film release level of presence at retail in the first place and the rest of the issues outlined above helped to create the perfect storm for the death of the line. If only Hasbro hadn’t put so much stock in the success of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we might have seen more Indiana Jones waves for at least another year. Hopefully the company has taken the lessons it has learned from this and will apply them in the future for any other beloved franchises.

*It’s sad that I realized that I’d be writing this article during this Fall way back in June/July of this year.

Links: Here’s the links to my reviews of a couple of the figures from when they first came out. They back up my claims about the sculpting and price. Review 1 and Review 2