LEGO Collectable Minifigures Future Series Rumours

[SirBlake]

5 hours ago, Robert8 said:

You're are quite the optimistic 

Hahah, yeah, well... it's either that or just fear the unknown, and that doesn't do me any good. How's the old saying go? "Expect the worst, hope for the best". I think that's what I'm doing.

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

On 12/22/2022 at 2:20 PM, Robert8 said:

Well I'm replying to myself:

As of today, Messi posted 5 of the top 10 most liked posts ever on Instagram

At this point I would be more surprised if itsnt a TEAM Argentina CMF.

I wonder if they can do the licensing gymnastics needed to include the World Cup Trophy as an accesory

I think a dream series for me would be a World Cup series with figs from the most iconic teams. Unlikely to happen, I imagine, since it would probably be a licensing headache...

[Classic_Spaceman]

With Sonic confirmed, I wonder if the Fall licensed CMF series will be for that. I would prefer Marvel, but the number of characters and new moulds that Sonic needs makes it well-suited to a CMF line. 
 

[lifeinplastic]

6 hours ago, 1980-Something-Space-Guy said:

I think a dream series for me would be a World Cup series with figs from the most iconic teams. Unlikely to happen, I imagine, since it would probably be a licensing headache...

I’d be in favour of this if it provided some national flags parts (not stickers).

[jonwil]

More sonic to go with the ideas set would be awesome.

[zoth33]

2 hours ago, jonwil said:

More sonic to go with the ideas set would be awesome.

There is the Sonic theme coming out that has 5 sets.  

[Robert8]

6 hours ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

With Sonic confirmed, I wonder if the Fall licensed CMF series will be for that. I would prefer Marvel, but the number of characters and new moulds that Sonic needs makes it well-suited to a CMF line. 
 

Are there enough characters for a CMF and wave of sets? 

[Classic_Spaceman]

11 hours ago, Robert8 said:

Are there enough characters for a CMF and wave of sets? 

I think so (especially since the sets will almost certainly have repeat figures), and since the characters will all need new moulded head pieces, I can see LEGO using their CMF budget to offset some of the costs of the theme. 
 

[sylin]

1 hour ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

I think so (especially since the sets will almost certainly have repeat figures), and since the characters will all need new moulded head pieces, I can see LEGO using their CMF budget to offset some of the costs of the theme. 
 

Yes, exactly. There's plenty of characters in Sonic to be able to justify a CMF line, plus there'd be the variants (like Super Sonic). And like you said, Spaceman, a CMF set would compliment the theme plus save them some money by not having to produce a ton of sets to include new characters in. 

[FinlayTheFaithful]

A Sonic CMF would be a good way to get obscure characters in minifigure form like Surge or Gemerl

[Robert8]

That's the thing, I don't think obscure characters belong in a CMF

[Karalora]

4 hours ago, Robert8 said:

That's the thing, I don't think obscure characters belong in a CMF

Why is that?

[Robert8]

3 hours ago, Karalora said:

Why is that?

Because people would only get the well-known characters 

The Sonic franchise is very Sonic-centric. I can't name any other character than him. It's not an ensemble like Muppets or Looney Tunes

[danth]

Not into Sonic but I know of Knuckles and Dr Robotnik. I think I've seen at least a few other main characters but I can't name them. And probably lots of bad guys.

Obscure to the general public and obscure to Sonic fans are presumably two very different things.

[Robert8]

Yes, but they need to attract casual buyers to get these. A CMF with obscure characters would only appeal to Sonic fans to also happen to be LEGO fans. 

I might be wrong, but I just dont see a Sonic CMF happening

[danth]

Is that how it's supposed to work? I just thought it was fans of the licenses buying licensed CMFs, not random people.

The only licensed CMFs I've ever bought were Simpsons because my wife was super into the Simpsons.

Marvel CMF? No interest, never bought any. Harry Potter? Don't care. But a TON of people like those licenses, apparently, so I can see them selling.

Muppets and Looney Tunes? Who the heck is buying those? There is simply not a large fandom for those, I don't care what anyone says. I grew up with the Muppets and Looney Tunes but I wouldn't spend money on them.

But anyway back to the "obscure" question. I guess one argument is that the more popular figures are going to be in the main sets anyway. So that could be one reason to put more side characters in the CMF series.

[karrit]

As I'm from an older generation, Sonic doesn't provoke much interest for me.   I know who he is but never watched any cartoons or movies with him so have no idea who any of the characters are so I'm not the target audience nor would I buy any sets or possible CMF's based on this theme.  Looney Tunes and the Muppets were CMF themes I was interested in and did buy but I doubt I'd buy any sets if they made them. I also bought the Marvel series of CMF's because some I was interested in and others I thought had parts that would be useful to moc some generic figures to populate Diagon Alley.  Harry Potter I was all in and bought a full box of each.  Batman, DC, Simpsons, SpongeBob aren't my thing and mostly were before I got back into Lego.  I think the first Disney CMF series was the first one that I actually searched for because I had to have Stitch and most of those I actually bought from the Lego Store at Disneyland.

[Karalora]

2 hours ago, Robert8 said:

Yes, but they need to attract casual buyers to get these.

Okay, but is that even likely? How many non-Sonic the Hedgehog fans are clamoring for a Sonic minifig to begin with? I'm with @danth, the non-fans aren't going to be the target market at all.

All of which is not to say that a Sonic wave is likely, because it may indeed be the case that the Venn diagram of Sonic fans and LEGO fans is too small to justify it. But I don't think it's because there aren't enough famous characters in the brand.

[Accio Lego]

I think the mere fact that we’re having the discussion about whether or not Sonic is popular enough for a cmf calls into question whether or not it’s a popular enough license for this particular cmf. 
 

This is going the be the first cmf with the new boxes, Lego has to know a good chunk of their normal customers are super wary about this. They need to maximize the number of non-AFOLs and impulse buyers they get to actually ensure this series (and possibly even the future of the entire Minifigures theme) is successful. And the fact that this series will be licensed suggests that Lego’s strategy to achieve that is to produce a series of characters that they know will have widespread appeal and attract consumers from multiple age groups, including and especially children.
 

Not to say that Sonic is impossible because of that, the recent movies did good at the box office and the theme had enough popularity to get an Ideas set, but it’s still a bit niche and if I was a Lego marketing executive I’d be wary of kicking off the boxes with a completely new theme. That’s why, in my personal opinion, Marvel and Harry Potter are the most likely as current themes that have had extremely well received CMFs in the past, with Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings being runners up as highly demanded returning themes that have never had a chance to demonstrate how well a CMF would sell and aren’t necessarily as kid friendly as the first two. 

[jonwil]

I wonder if Looney Tunes did well enough to get a series 2 at some point... (there are still quite a few very popular characters that never got made...)

 

[KuhlAidMan]

3 hours ago, jonwil said:

I wonder if Looney Tunes did well enough to get a series 2 at some point... (there are still quite a few very popular characters that never got made...)

 

I hope so! I think it sold out in our area almost instantly. I would love a series 2!

[BrickBob Studpants]

According to @Brick Clicker, the third series next year is Marvel S2

Edited December 30, 2022 by BrickBob Studpants

[Robert8]

Well

Wake me up in 2024 then

[karrit]

Depends on what the characters are if I'll be bothered to try to get some.  May just purchase a full set from somewhere if they are interesting enough.  I'm sure there'll be plenty of other stuff to spend my money on.

[Accio Lego]

2 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

According to @Brick Clicker, the third series next year is Marvel S2

Yeah, that was the most obvious choice. Extremely popular, plenty of character options, popular with both kids and adults, and the Marvel fanboys are so rabid that they won’t care how many boxes they have to buy to get the ones they want. 
 

The real question is what kind of character spread we’ll be looking at. I can see popular characters from this year’s shows making the cut alongside next year’s stars, but that means being even more cramped in the lineup. I could definitely see some shows only getting a single character slot as a result. 
 

Personally, I wouldn’t expect to see any characters from upcoming shows that we don’t already know about - the biggest burns for Lego in the Marvel Disney+ stuff before were the inaccurate white Vision and Daughter of Thanos Gamora (the later of whom had her intro episode cut from What If season 1) and the entire What If set based on an episode that was moved from season one to season two (featuring Tony Stark on Skaar instead of Hulk). With that in mind, I imagine lego will want to focus on the characters that Marvel can’t yank out on them at the last minute - so headliners and already featured characters only. 
 

It’s also very dependent on what Marvel wants done in a cmf (who knows, so exec could say ‘Hawkeye will be nearly two years old when this comes out, skip it), and what, if any, show tie in sets we get (i.e. The Watcher would have been an obvious choice for series 1 as the overarching narrator and puppet master of What If, but lego decided to put him in the previously mentioned set based off an axed episode, so…). There are still several  Superheroes sets whose names and specific licenses we don’t know, so that could effect a lot.