Interview with the Marvel Legends Team Post Toy Fair 2020

The Toyark was able to sit in on a Google Hangout interview session with the Marvel Legends team at Hasbro today.  Fans from several other sites were also there asking questions about Toy Fair 2020 Reveals, The Haslab teaser, working with Marvel Studios and more.  Read on to check out a quick run down after the break!

Participants:

MU Review
Marvelicious Toys
Toyark
Ghrenassia.com

Marvel Team:

Dwight Stall – Senior Design Manager
Ryan Ting – Senior Brand Manger
Tony Colella – Master Model Artist
Dan Yun – Associate Brand Manager

All questions and answers below are PARAPHRASED and reduced to key points.  Lots of casual discussion around each question omitted.

MU Review: What are additional future technology aspects you’d like to work into the line?

Getting the plastic / PVC to move like flesh.

Effects for powers.

Marvelicious: What % of Legends were revealed at Toy Fair for the year?

Roughly 60%, not exact.

Toyark: Any possibility of getting Spider Man and his amazing friends or 60s Marvel Cartoons?

Have access to the whole catalog for Marvel. Talked about it. Cell shading, Spider Man Me-Too 2 pack.  They’ve talked about getting artist specific styles, and doing that for animated as well. Team is big fan of Spider Man and Amazing friends, more to come.

Ghrenassia: When do they start working on movie toys in relation to when they come out?

Depends on when they get assets to them. Movie times are set, so that gives them time to have them ready. At times movie studios will hold back information or characters so they get pushed to later waves to avoid spoilers. Example is last year’s Hulk, with gauntlet in wave 3. Same for Bro Thor, held back to wave 3. Sometimes they won’t know about key parts of movies until they see it in the theater.

MU Review: Is the Sugar Man wave the last of the Age of Apocalypse line?

Yes for 2020, after that – stay tuned. Well is not dry. If it was up to Dan, he’d do nothing but AoA.

Marvelicious: Old Man Hawkeye and new articulation, no pins etc – said it was an experiment. What is a downside to the new method?

When you create an upper/lower arm in this style – can’t swap parts. Same with thighs/shins. So limits reuse and swapping down the road for repaints. Limits tool usage going forward.

Toyark: Anything holding you back from doing a Bill Bixby, Lou Ferigno Hulk, older properties?

Nothing holding back, may require some extra work for character likenesses. Key is finding out how to fit it in, find right time, what Marvel wants to do during the year. Disney+ exposes new fans to old properties and may open things like this up.

Ghrenassia: How close do you work with the Studios in relation to the toys?

They will have video conferences, explain whats going to be key in upcoming movies and tv shows, try to keep Hasbro in loop of changes. In earlier Marvel Studios times, Hasbro would storyboard with them as movie was in production, worked with Marvel during Captain America to help make things work for toys.

MU Review: Who would you like to see as a Hyper Real Marvel character.

Wolverine, size and muscle mass, multiple costumes. Spider-Man, having seamless joints for the suit. Gambit so the Jacket can come off. Black Panther, same idea as Spider Man – seamless costume. Nightcrawler.

Marvelicious: At Toy Fair – Gamerverse 2 packs, what was up with that?

They were the 6 inch kid targeted line, based on looks from the Avengers game. Not traditional legends. Legends will be in spring.

Toyark: Fox properties – one shot or ongoing, how long until we get teams finished?

To build out teams – long time. Can’t speak beyond what was shown. Who knows what future holds, if it’s a hit and Marvel likes it they can do more. Don’t have it all mapped out yet. Tried for Cyclops in the black leather for this year but couldn’t get it in. If the demand from fans is there, they can shift things around.

Ghrenassia: Has there been a difference between toy design and movie design?

There has been, many times they get concept art and movie changes before they can react – Cull Obsidian changed drastically. Endgame – Quantum suits changed late. They will try to address it in future if they can. Getting skin tones right from concept art (Thanos as an example).

MU Review: Haslab Sentinel – How tall? What was on table but didn’t make it?

More announcements in a month or so. Can’t comment on size or what it is. Pretty impressive in scale. Vehicles, Playsets, big characters all discussed by fans and team.

Marvelicious: Modern Rogue – no white stripe at Toy Fair, sup?

Rushed prototypes to get ready for Toy Fair. Rogue’s hair, Storms gauntlets. Will be addressing before retail release.

Toyark: Haslab – already spoken about, but talk about it more now. :)

Multiple concepts before locking into this. Bigger and more crazy than what’s been done in Legends so far. Previous Haslabs were extremely successful. They want to smash the offering out the gate so they can do more later on.

Ghrenassia: Are tv and movies more tied to toys than before?

Yes, there is more of an expectation of toys as they come out now. Legends have grown over the years, lots more product coming out. Avengers Game, Maximum Venom, Disney+ are examples.

That’s about it!  Again, all the questions and answers here are paraphrased, but we believe this was the gist of the chat.  We would like to thank the Hasbro team and the PR team for getting this together and including us in the mix!