Toyvolution

There’s three big-budget super hero movies out this summer. On average, we can expect around five super hero movies in a given year. Virtually all of those movies will have sequels, prequels, or reboots. It doesn’t matter if the movie was good, or bad. As long as it makes a decent amount of money, it’ll be back in one form or another. Take the Amazing Spider-Man, for instance. It’s a reboot after Spider-Man 3 got terrible reviews. The Avengers featured a reboot of a reboot for the Hulk, while being the sequel to three other movies. The Dark Knight Rises is the sequel to the sequel to a reboot of a reboot of reboot of sequel.

You may notice one of the big things about all these movies are the commercial tie-ins, which are incredibly lucrative for the companies that make them. The Dark Knight is sponsored by Mountain Dew Dark Berry. The Avengers is sponsored by Dr.Pepper. There’s a slew of toys for all these movies. The characters in the movies are practically chosen for their ability to sell toys. The Avengers featured seven super heroes, and the Dark Knight Rises has two villains, which is staple now. Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and the Dark Knight Rises all have one thing in common: they all have two super villains in each of the movies. Was there any real need for Harvey Dent to become Two-Face in the Dark Knight? His transformation, however, allowed them to sell another toy on the shelves. That was one of the major complaints about Tim Burton’s Batman, where kids had to settle for this action figure:

This is Bob, the Joker’s sidekick in Batman. No man or child would ever want this, as it’s the action figure of a balding man with a removable hat. It’s essentially me. Also, it looks nothing like the actor in the movie, or even the box art. If you’re going to mess up an action figure, why not go whole-hog and add a missile firing jetpack?

If you think back to the failed Superman reboot that Superman Returns replaced, Kevin Smith talked about how the director held up production because he wanted to be able to pick a costume for Superman that would sell more toys.

That’s really the only reason movies are made: to make money. That’s why there’s a Jar-Jar Binks and Ewoks. Star Wars has made more money from toys than it has from the films, ever after re-re-releasing them in theatres. Avatar and Titanic might be two of the highest grossing movies, but George Lucas sleeps on a mountain of money. He has to wait for a gondola to get out of bed, or ski down.

My point is this: super hero movies make excellent fodder for toys. Those toys suck, though. Sometime in the last five years, nerds stopped caring about collecting off-the-shelf store-bought movie merchandise. Incidentally, there’s been three Transformers movies. The Transformers movie toys were terrible. Every aspect of Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise was designed to sell toys to kids. Nerds didn’t really care for them, and hated on them.

Same goes for super hero action figures. Green Lantern was a terrible, terrible movie with an enormous cult following… of the comic book. The movie opened up a barrage of Green Lantern toys available at your local Wal-Mart that’d never been available before. They were actually pretty cool, with an original spring-loaded transforming-ring power feature. No nerd likes them. They can love the Green Lantern, but not the figures.

Why?

Weirdly enough, I think the size ratio is a major role. The Green Lantern figures and the Avengers, Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Wolverine, etc. all have their figure in the ‘80’s G.I. Joe ratio, not the ‘80’s He-Man ratio nerds seem to cherish. The smaller size makes sense in terms of how many you can fit on a shelf, both in stores and in nerd homes, plus it easier to get vehicles and accessories for those figures. No one’s really biting, though.

The new Batman toys are still in the old Kenner ratio, but still no one wants those because they look nothing like the movie actors.

This is what was sold in stores:

Fuck that. I have this.

This is what you can order online:

Notice a difference?

Kids don’t really care about action figures anymore because of the prevalence of video games, smart phones and the internet, which has pornography on it, by the way. Plus there’s the whole economy thing. Nerds are the same way. There’s no, “must have,” toys in stores now, for nerds. They’re more into retro toys or exclusives. Exclusives like this:

4’ long, like my wiener.

A lot of them started their collections in a certain ratio and don’t want to convert, but seriously, that’s toy porn.

With declining toy sales, some movies are moving away from selling-out. Look at the surprisingly good X-Men: First Class. Did you ever see a single toy or product related to that movie? On the other end of the spectrum, Green Lantern was terrible and has a million different toys. Similarly. do you think Chis Nolan lost any sleep about how to squeeze neon-coloured Bane goons into the Dark Knight Rises? Super hero movies can drop the act now, unlike the 90’s and the 00’s, and focus more on presentation and appealing to a broader audience, and nerds are eating it up at the box office instead of spending money on collectibles.