Wizarding World 2022 - Rumors & Discussion

[Clone OPatra]

On 2/25/2022 at 10:20 AM, sebastian666 said:

The Wizarding World franchise is in this really interesting place where it seems like they are simply using the new content that is being produced to reignite fans’ love for the original films and boost sales of merchandise that is based on those original films.

They opened an entire Wizarding World store in Manhattan last year I still haven’t seen any Fantastic Beasts merchandise in it - LEGO or otherwise. I don’t understand it. I assume it’s because the movies are targeted to adult fans of Harry Potter and the content is not very kid friendly. Still, I can’t think of any other major movie franchise that operates this way. Look at Jurassic World or Star Wars.

The silver lining is that I hope LEGO treats the new Lord of the Rings series the same way - uses the new content as a vehicle to reignite fans’ love of LOTR and rolls out all new LOTR sets based on the original films.

Personally I think the way LEGO handled (or mishandled) the LotR/Hobbit line compared to the way they are handling Wizarding World is perfectly telling as to why they aren't taking any risks with material based on the new movies.

In both franchises there is/was established, beloved and iconic material from the already existing books/films, and untested new material about which it's too soon to know what will stick. In both there are also massive amounts of characters in both the old and new films, but audiences have already had time to get to know all of the ones in the older films and also know who is and isn't important, whereas in the new films coming out it's too soon to tell what impact characters will have. Also, in both franchises the locations were better designed and shot in the older movies, while the new films either contain locations that are pulled from the old ones or are new but a bit of a mess and not very easy to see anyway.

Look how LEGO really tanked the LotR/Hobbit line trying to focus on stuff from the Hobbit films that mostly didn't lend itself to sets, and taking a shot in the dark at what characters to produce and include, having no idea what characters were actually going to be important and resonate to audiences. Meanwhile they made bad and strange decisions within the LotR sets too, but if they'd had the idea to keep pumping out iconic LotR locations and creatures (Rohan, Minas Tirith, Witch-King and Fell East, Oliphants) rather than random ruins and walls for the Hobbit sets, I'm sure the line could've continued being successful.

Most of the Hobbit builds each wave were random and uninteresting or at least not iconic, and thus far what I'm seeing in the FB films would largely be the same. Yes there are some creatures they could do, but otherwise there have been the various Ministries of Magic and standard early 20th century cities and that's it.

Other themes like Jurassic and Star Wars are different. Jurassic always has Dinos and utility vehicles which seem to sell no matter what. Star Wars has new ships which people mostly like even if they don't like the new media, and the casts of characters aren't quite as huge or are easily defined with who is a main character and who isn't.

[Balrogofmorgoth]

3 hours ago, Clone OPatra said:

Personally I think the way LEGO handled (or mishandled) the LotR/Hobbit line compared to the way they are handling Wizarding World is perfectly telling as to why they aren't taking any risks with material based on the new movies.

In both franchises there is/was established, beloved and iconic material from the already existing books/films, and untested new material about which it's too soon to know what will stick. In both there are also massive amounts of characters in both the old and new films, but audiences have already had time to get to know all of the ones in the older films and also know who is and isn't important, whereas in the new films coming out it's too soon to tell what impact characters will have. Also, in both franchises the locations were better designed and shot in the older movies, while the new films either contain locations that are pulled from the old ones or are new but a bit of a mess and not very easy to see anyway.

Look how LEGO really tanked the LotR/Hobbit line trying to focus on stuff from the Hobbit films that mostly didn't lend itself to sets, and taking a shot in the dark at what characters to produce and include, having no idea what characters were actually going to be important and resonate to audiences. Meanwhile they made bad and strange decisions within the LotR sets too, but if they'd had the idea to keep pumping out iconic LotR locations and creatures (Rohan, Minas Tirith, Witch-King and Fell East, Oliphants) rather than random ruins and walls for the Hobbit sets, I'm sure the line could've continued being successful.

Most of the Hobbit builds each wave were random and uninteresting or at least not iconic, and thus far what I'm seeing in the FB films would largely be the same. Yes there are some creatures they could do, but otherwise there have been the various Ministries of Magic and standard early 20th century cities and that's it.

Other themes like Jurassic and Star Wars are different. Jurassic always has Dinos and utility vehicles which seem to sell no matter what. Star Wars has new ships which people mostly like even if they don't like the new media, and the casts of characters aren't quite as huge or are easily defined with who is a main character and who isn't.

It’s so frustrating how LOTR was handled. I think the Hobbit sets were great but they did too many too soon when they should have focused more heavily on LOTR for a few years and let people grow to like the Hobbit characters more by the time they release more sets for it. I still hold out hope they’ll come back to a Middle Earth theme someday. But the hope is dwindling.

[zoth33]

30 minutes ago, Balrogofmorgoth said:

It’s so frustrating how LOTR was handled. I think the Hobbit sets were great but they did too many too soon when they should have focused more heavily on LOTR for a few years and let people grow to like the Hobbit characters more by the time they release more sets for it. I still hold out hope they’ll come back to a Middle Earth theme someday. But the hope is dwindling.

The Hobbit sets came out with the movies so that would not make sense but they could have extended the line and did more waves and even sprinkle in LOTR sets within the Hobbit waves to keep people invested in theme.  But they also could have made some more interesting sets like a balrog, a fell beast and witch king, anything from gondor, a mumakil, bree, more of rivendell.   There was so much they didn't touch that would have sold really well.  

[Accio Lego]

While I can definitely see some very valid comparison points between LOTR/Hobbit and Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts, I’m not sure it’s a direct one to one comparison, and in any case, I don’t think that’s the real problem here. 
 

The thing is, having collected Harry Potter lego since the beginning, it’s fairly obvious that the level of detail in sets has gone way up, and with it our expectations for accuracy. Just look at the old Graveyard Duel set - Lego clearly had the concept art for Harry’s outfit, the winged death statue on Riddle Sr.’s grave, and not much else. There’s really no way to recreate the resurrection scene properly, as the statue that pins Harry to the headstone is far from ground level and lacks the scythe it had in the movie, presumably because Lego didn’t know it would do that. Add onto that the large number of extraneous builds that were ultimately just padding and Lego would never be able to get away with something similar today. Case in point, when Lego recreated the graveyard scene in 2019 it was much smaller and focused mainly on a screw accurate version of the gravestone whose main design feature was the fact that Harry could be trapped against it like in the movie. 
 

Now consider that while Lego has spent the last 20 years getting increasingly more detailed with their set construction, the movie industry has been getting increasingly more rabid about preventing spoilers and leaks, to the point of ruining their own movies because even the actors don’t actually know what’s going on. 
 

Sets that don’t accurately portray what people see in the movie just aren’t going to sell as well, and merchandising partners like lego are getting less and less information on what’s actually going on. Lego sort of got around that for the one CoG set they did by focusing on something simple that featured in the first trailer, but there were still plenty of accuracy complaints about the minifigs and ultimately it portrayed things that only appeared in the very first scenes and then disappeared for the rest of the movie. Of course the nostalgic and excitingly detailed Harry Potter sets were much more popular that year. 
 

Honestly, I think accuracy is one of the main things guiding Lego’s decisions here (just look at how they’re going back to early MCU movies when there’s constantly new content they’re also making sets for), because there really is a fairly obvious way to handle sets for the Fantastic Beasts franchise. Sure, none of the locations are on screen long enough to be set worthy (no matter how gorgeous some of them are), but Lego knows full well that buildable creature play sets based on a beast that only showed up for a scene or two in one movie can sell - that’s why there’s been at least one every single year since the theme rebooted. In fact, it looks like this will be the first year that doesn’t have at least one buildable creature in a playset, and since the two smallest sets both feature large molded creatures and it’s the third year running of buildable creature display sets I think there’s still ample evidence that Lego knows magical creatures sell. So it really can’t be a matter of Lego not knowing what to make sets of. 

[Bruno Madrigal]

So it sounds like most of the Harry Potter Summer sets release on June 1st, but what about that $120 set we don't know anything about?

Personally I'm really excited for The Ministry of Magic, The Shrieking Shack, and Dumbledore's Office. I think that for $120, it's likely to be more buildable minifigures, but I hope it's something else like The Durmstrang Ship.

Since these sets are releasing in June, should I expect pictures in April or May? 

[krimimimi]

12 minutes ago, Bruno Madrigal said:

So it sounds like most of the Harry Potter Summer sets release on June 1st, but what about that $120 set we don't know anything about?

Personally I'm really excited for The Ministry of Magic, The Shrieking Shack, and Dumbledore's Office. I think that for $120, it's likely to be more buildable minifigures, but I hope it's something else like The Durmstrang Ship.

Since these sets are releasing in June, should I expect pictures in April or May? 

I think I'd prefer to see the OotP Grimmauld Place to the Durmstrang ship / Second Task set. Aside from simple personal preference (although I'd definitely like to get the Second Task at some point), what also makes a difference for me is it would open up the waves more. Instead of a single set or two going outside of the expected time window, it makes it feel like anything's possible, which is more exciting. Right now we as fans focus on a couple of films and make lists of missing scenes we'd still like to see, and then are often disappointed when something isn't covered because we're sure it won't be for years yet (if at all). That would change it up quite a bit. Far more scenes are possible, and if one of your favourites isn't included? No worries, if not this year, perhaps the next? 

It also has the added benefit of making it more difficult for the knock offs to predict what's coming, which I imagine helps TLG. They must need some lead time to make the rip offs, too. 

Last year we saw pix in April and were able to pre-order the sets then. 

[Inevitable Thanos]

25 minutes ago, Bruno Madrigal said:

So it sounds like most of the Harry Potter Summer sets release on June 1st, but what about that $120 set we don't know anything about?

Personally I'm really excited for The Ministry of Magic, The Shrieking Shack, and Dumbledore's Office. I think that for $120, it's likely to be more buildable minifigures, but I hope it's something else like The Durmstrang Ship.

Since these sets are releasing in June, should I expect pictures in April or May? 

Ya I would expect some pictures between April or May, I think we usually get pictures towards the end of April 

[Bruno Madrigal]

7 minutes ago, krimimimi said:

I think I'd prefer to see the OotP Grimmauld Place to the Durmstrang ship / Second Task set. Aside from simple personal preference (although I'd definitely like to get the Second Task at some point), what also makes a difference for me is it would open up the waves more. Instead of a single set or two going outside of the expected time window, it makes it feel like anything's possible, which is more exciting. Right now we as fans focus on a couple of films and make lists of missing scenes we'd still like to see, and then are often disappointed when something isn't covered because we're sure it won't be for years yet (if at all). That would change it up quite a bit. Far more scenes are possible, and if one of your favourites isn't included? No worries, if not this year, perhaps the next? 

It also has the added benefit of making it more difficult for the knock offs to predict what's coming, which I imagine helps TLG. They must need some lead time to make the rip offs, too. 

Last year we saw pix in April and were able to pre-order the sets then. 

Okay I just want to see Lego make Second Task/Durmstrang Ship at some point in the near future. Grimmauld Place would also be great, we could get a new Sirius Black, Tonks with colorful hair, and Kreacher for the first time. Do you think that the Advent Calendar is also based on Ootp in Grimmauld Place?

Awesome, now that I'm remembering it, I think I did preorder a few of those sets last year like Hogsmeade and The Chamber of Secrets. I'm really wanting to get my hands on The Shrieking Shack, Dumbledore's Office, and The Ministry of Magic first. Then I'll wait and see if I come around to getting the other smaller sets that are rumored so far

6 minutes ago, Inevitable Thanos said:

Ya I would expect some pictures between April or May, I think we usually get pictures towards the end of April 

Thanks for that 👍

Edited February 26, 2022 by Bruno Madrigal

[Accio Lego]

33 minutes ago, Bruno Madrigal said:

So it sounds like most of the Harry Potter Summer sets release on June 1st, but what about that $120 set we don't know anything about?

Personally I'm really excited for The Ministry of Magic, The Shrieking Shack, and Dumbledore's Office. I think that for $120, it's likely to be more buildable minifigures, but I hope it's something else like The Durmstrang Ship.

Since these sets are releasing in June, should I expect pictures in April or May? 

The $120 set is almost certainly a retailer exclusive set. All the set details we get - names, piece counts, descriptions, and preliminary images - come from promotional material passed around to secondary retailers so they can decide how many units they’re going to stock, and for obvious reasons retailer exclusives don’t get included in that. It will get released at the same time as everything else. 
 

Personally, I also hope it isn’t more buildable figures, but my hopes are more towards No. 12 Grimmauld Place. (Fingers crossed that’s where the leaked lavender Tonks-esque hair comes from)

We usually see pics in late April - early May, but we got the promo video for the Hogwarts Trunk coming out next week at the beginning of December and there are already June 1st Star Wars sets listed on shop@home so who can say for sure anymore. 

[krimimimi]

37 minutes ago, Bruno Madrigal said:

Okay I just want to see Lego make Second Task/Durmstrang Ship at some point in the near future. Grimmauld Place would also be great, we could get a new Sirius Black, Tonks with colorful hair, and Kreacher for the first time. Do you think that the Advent Calendar is also based on Ootp in Grimmauld Place?

It's definitely premature to guess that about the AC. For one thing, we don't even know the $120 set is No. 12.

What do we have so far? There's been a leaked piece suited to Tonks' hair (although that could just as easily happen next year or in another CMF series, if it even does), and we have the information it's supposed to be a play set (as opposed to buildable maxifigs, say). Plus we're already getting two decent sized castle builds this summer already, so a third seems unlikely. It speaks for No. 12 as a possibility, but that's all it is, nothing more.

Even if it were Grimmauld Place, that doesn't mean the AC is related to it, although it has the advantage of being Christmassy, which was something last year's lacked. Then again, that fact proves everything might be on the table for this year's, too. It could be completely random again.

[Accio Lego]

You know, I’ve seen a few suggestions for what the $120 retailer exclusive could be. Grimmauld Place is a popular one, the Drumstrang Ship, Second Task, or a combination of the two is also common. I’ve also seen more unlikely possibilities like more maxi figs or a SoD set. But so far I haven’t seen anyone really set the cat amongst the pigeons and point out that $120 is a high enough price point to accommodate a Diagon Alley compatible Gringotts. 

[Retro Brick Reviews]

46 minutes ago, Accio Lego said:

But so far I haven’t seen anyone really set the cat amongst the pigeons and point out that $120 is a high enough price point to accommodate a Diagon Alley compatible Gringotts. 

Because it isn't. Diagon Alley was 5544 pieces for 4 buildings, therefore we can extrapolate that each building was about 1300-1400 pieces. That's already more than the typical amount included in a $120 set. Add to that that Gringotts would need to be significantly larger and probably have a full 32x32 stud base to be accurate, and it would easily be well over 2000 pieces. No chance it's the $120 set.

[Childe_Roland]

7 minutes ago, Retro Brick Reviews said:

Because it isn't. Diagon Alley was 5544 pieces for 4 buildings, therefore we can extrapolate that each building was about 1300-1400 pieces. That's already more than the typical amount included in a $120 set. Add to that that Gringotts would need to be significantly larger and probably have a full 32x32 stud base to be accurate, and it would easily be well over 2000 pieces. No chance it's the $120 set.

Thst is, assuming that they make the Gringott's in scale. It could be close to the same size as buildings we already have (closer to what the previous one was in the 2011 Diagon Alley). The bigger problem I see with this being Gringott's is what could be the $470.00 D2C. Ministry is out, they've done buildable icons, the train arguments I've seen put forth seem too small for the price point. Just don't know what else it really could be. I mean we don't know til we see. For my money though I'd bet the last two are Gringott's + Diagon Alley expansion and No. 12 Grimmauld Place.

[(Insert Name Here)]

20 hours ago, Micmac said:

So I did some minor alterations to the official set and created a ground floor to go with it. I feel like it's possible to make these modular sets much more film accurate while keeping them in the new style. I feel that they could have done so much more with this set to make it a must have. I've added Harry practicing Expecto Patronum with Lupin and Dementor coming out of the new trunk on the ground floor. The courtyard and fountain that are supposed to be in the new Sirius escape set this summer could have been added to this set too. I'll put more pictures up on instagram. 

Yep yep yep. That is much much better.

My main problem with the set we got was that it looks so short for a clock TOWER, and it looks a lot less film accurate than the 2019 Clock Tower set.

But you've really fixed that. Especially since there's the Dark Tower set coming which I think was said it's coming with the fountain from the back courtyard that's in front of the clocktower.

[krimimimi]

3 hours ago, (Insert Name Here) said:

My main problem with the set we got was that it looks so short for a clock TOWER, and it looks a lot less film accurate than the 2019 Clock Tower set.

I'm hoping that's because one of the summer sets stacks with it and remedies the situation, maybe even the Dark Tower / Sirius' Rescue set. (That said, Micmac did a great job, as always.) They could be trying to break the sets down into more fiscally manageable bites. It's a pity we don't have pictures of how they're meant to integrate yet.

[BrickBob Studpants]

I still fail to see how a Grimmauld Place set is supposed to work, unless it‘s just the interior  The exterior is sandwiched between two other identical buildings, so how would you make this look any good (i.e., without ugly plain sides)?

Edited February 27, 2022 by BrickBob Studpants

[krimimimi]

@BrickBob Studpants When I think of Grimmauld, I usually picture the interior and the front, probably about the format of one of the DA builds, maybe a story taller and narrower, but that's it. I don't need the neighbouring buildings, because that was only ever a short special effect or an establishing shot. If they want to honour the Secret Kept aspect, then two panels of partial neighbouring buildings that slide across the front to cover it and then out to the sides when exposed would do it, and it would help enhance the row house effect in the process, but I genuinely care less about them than the doxies in the curtains. In addition to the gimmick inflating the cost without adding too much value to the set (if that distinction makes sense?), it would be a repetitive build as it would mirror the already built front of the Order's HQ, only in 'cleaner' and 'better maintained', plus it's easy to MOC if we care to, we'd literally have the plans for it. Instead give me a stair that swings out like in DA with the portrait of Walburga and the elf heads mounted on the wall any day. 

(Also, shoutout to whomever it was here that suggested the mounted heads a year or so ago. I didn't know I wanted it until you mentioned it, but now it absolutely needs to happen. )

Edited February 27, 2022 by krimimimi

[BrickBob Studpants]

44 minutes ago, krimimimi said:

(Also, shoutout to whomever it was here that suggested the mounted heads a year or so ago. I didn't know I wanted it until you mentioned it, but now it absolutely needs to happen. )

Something tells me a bunch of severed, taxidermied elf heads wouldn‘t be the best thing to include in a set 

[Slytherin Alumni]

I know it wasn’t in the films, but St. Mungo’s would be a cool theme for the AC. They went on Christmas Day in OotP. We could get Neville’s gran, possibly his parents, Lockhart and maybe the devil’ snare plant. If the $120 set is Grimmauld Place that would fit nicely. Just an idea, not a realistic possibility. A straight Grimmauld Place themed AC would be more likely as that is where they spent Christmas in the film.  

They also went to Godric’s Hallow during Christmas time. Imagine a Bathida Bagshot/Nagini minifigure haha 

In HBP they spent Xmas at the Burrow. Bill, Fleur, Lupin and Tonks were there…maybe that’s how we get her?

Whatever it is, I hope the AC is Christmas themed again this year 

[krimimimi]

1 hour ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

Something tells me a bunch of severed, taxidermied elf heads wouldn‘t be the best thing to include in a set 

I would be satisfied with a sticker. And they've included shrunken heads in the theme, both in sticker (Hogsmeade) and printed part (Knight Bus) form, so taxidermied elf should surely be within the range of possibilities...  

1 hour ago, Slytherin Alumni said:

St. Mungo’s would be a cool theme for the AC. [...]  

They also went to Godric’s Hallow during Christmas time. Imagine a Bathida Bagshot/Nagini minifigure haha 

St. Mungo's - aside from the fact they don't seem to be doing sets / locations that weren't in the films (they even avoided the rather obvious opening to put Padma as a Ravenclaw in the Divination set instead of Parvati), does anyone know if there was even source material for St. Mungo's in the lego HP video game?

I want the Bagshot / Nagini build, but people here have rather convincingly assured me it will.not.happen. 

[BrickBob Studpants]

6 minutes ago, krimimimi said:

I would be satisfied with a sticker. And they've included shrunken heads in the theme, both in sticker (Hogsmeade) and printed part (Knight Bus) form, so taxidermied elf should surely be within the range of possibilities...  

Except the shrunken heads are depicted as being alive 

[Retro Brick Reviews]

4 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

I still fail to see how a Grimmauld Place set is supposed to work, unless it‘s just the interior  The exterior is sandwiched between two other identical buildings, so how would you make this look any good (i.e., without ugly plain sides)?

I have two ideas, but firstly it's important to note that #12 looks a fair bit grimier than the other buildings - play up on that, with spooky details on the exterior and showing through the windows.

In terms of the reveal feature, I have 3 ideas, which will henceforth be labelled the "stupid complex" method, the "makes sense" method, and the "realistic" method.

The "stupid complex" method is based on a MOC, which iirc LEGO actually shared on social media a couple of years ago. Essentially, there's a Technic mechanism where you have a fully enclosed #12 hidden behind the two facades, and when you slide them apart #12 automatically moves forward to fill the space between them. Then, the fully enclosed #12 can swing open at the back on both sides (think 2011 Gringotts) to both reveal the center interior and have other interior sections fill the empty #11 and #13. Would be awesome, but I don't see it happening. 

The "makes sense" method is a lot simpler. #12 never moves, and just has two 1-brick thick building facades covering it, which can then be slid out of the way to reveal #12. The interior is as wide as both facades slid together, so there would be notable empty space left.

The "realistic" option is that LEGO simply says "heck with it" and completely ignores the reveal function, just doing a build of all 3 buildings with the interior of #12 going inside all 3 of them. This would be very disappointing to me, but I think it would be the most likely course for the set to take.

[krimimimi]

@Retro Brick Reviews you forgot the "double heck with it" version where they don't represent the other buildings at all. 

[Retro Brick Reviews]

1 hour ago, krimimimi said:

@Retro Brick Reviews you forgot the "double heck with it" version where they don't represent the other buildings at all. 

That's highly unlikely. The other buildings ARE the iconic part of #12's exterior, and without them it's not large enough to justify a $100+ set unless they made it at a much larger scale than all the other HP buildings.

[Retro Brick Reviews]

In any case, while Grimmauld Place is my single most wanted HP set of all time, I don't think we'll get it this wave. They're already doing the Shrieking Shack, and both exclusives being big houses heavily associated with Sirius Black seems unlikely. My money's on this finally being the Durmstrang Ship remake (not with the 2nd Task, that would sell better as a separate set down the line).