When I was a lad, movie merchandise was in general maybe a tie-in magazine, book, badges, jigsaws, T-shirts and the like but along came Star Wars in 1977, which changed everything, instead of ‘Action Man’, the action figure was born, a 5 inch replica of our heroes Han, Luke and the like (as well as Darth and his troopers of course =)
Excellent marketing showed the list of characters that you could collect on the back of the box. They even had mail in offers to get an exclusive character if you brought so many figures, the urge to collect was born!
Present day, movie merchandise is a major money making business, the Computer game tie-in, replica props, T-shirts, the ‘Happy Meal’ toy, the action figures, themed board games such as Lord of the Rings Monopoly and again leading the pack, in the process of getting a company back to record sales, themed Lego from who else but Star Wars.
We have been watching a BBC1 TV Show called Pound Shop Wars, the staff were talking about how a range from Disney’s Frozen was such a money spinner for them, they literally felt putting Olaf and Co on any product could sell anything!
BUT, our favourite newest bit of movie product to get is the great characters from Funko Pop, a simple mini statue that is remarkably cute and of course collectable, their website is here, linked to the movie range http://funko.com/collections/pop/pop-movies (they also have TV ranges such as Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, we personally wish they had a Suits range, Harvey for the wife, Rachel for me =)
The only problem of course is when you have a favourite film director of Tim Burton, there are many iconic characters, it can be hard to know which to get first = )
Just to make sure they keep my business, just this week they announced a Hunger Games range and our regular readers will know how much we like Jennifer Lawrence, so at least one of the Katniss models will be on our shopping list in the near future =)
All the big movies are catered for: Harry Potter; The Hobbit; Minions; The Crow and of course Star Wars are just some of their ranges.
But it’s not just the mainstream, Funko have released figures from films which don’t necessarily get movie merchandise for example: The Breakfast Club; Jupiter Ascending; Napoleon Dynamite: Pitch Perfect and the first Funko we ever purchased, Sharknado have had the Pop treatment.
Do you like Funko? What character would you love that they have not released yet, let us know
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