Accio Lego

Don’t forget Myrtle! At least she and the Grey Lady/Helena Ravenclaw have chances to show up in sets - the Bloody Baron and Fat Friar only really appear during the welcome feast, so they’d really have to show up in a CMF.

Looks cool! (Darn it, now I might have to grab some to play with) How’d you put together your Bloody Baron?

Still, a single new hairpiece isn’t too crazy a proposition for a main antagonist character in a set, especially when he’ll likely turn up again. Hence the appeal of getting characters like Leta Lestrange or young Newt in the CMF.

I mean, we got new hairpieces for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore and Hagrid all in one set back in 2018. And it’s not like Fantastic Beasts didn’t get a mold budget, it’s just that the Grindelwald’s Escape set sunk it all in a brand new thestral (not to mention the designers quite likely didn’t have the best, or any, references to use when they were making the set in the first place).

I’m not sure I’d put Grindelwald on my list of priorities for a CMF, mainly because I don’t expect his appearance to change too much over the next three movies, which gives us plenty of time to get him in sets if Lego continues the FB theme. I’d rather the CMF give us characters like Leta Lestrange, who have only a slim chance of appearing in future sets because they won’t be featured in future movies.

This is exactly the same as my own predictions for the potential Fantastic Beasts lineup in the CMF. There’s no guarantee that we’ll get FB characters, but these guys would all be great to get.

Actually the DC Superheroes series is the first licensed CMF to only have 16 characters in years. Back in May Disney series 2 had the same 18 characters as its series 1, so it’s hardly unreadable to expect that Wizarding World series 2 will have the same 22 character slots as series 1. Although if the price hike stays some of us might wish there were only 16.

I second both of these! The franchise has so many fun and colorful characters that give the designers a chance to really go wild in the CMF, so I hope they take advantage of that.

I can’t help but worry that the people speculating about Drumstrang ship/Second task sets and Champion variant CMFs are setting themselves up for disappointment the same way that people talking about Chamber of Secrets and Lockhart defense classroom sets were last year. It might happen eventually but I wouldn’t count on it this year.

Technically speaking Cedric does appear in the movies, if we assume that the Hufflepuff seeker seen in PoA is supposed to be him. The Hufflepuff quidditch uniforms do appear in the movie, you just never get a good look at them. That said, the designs for the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw uniforms have existed in supplemental media for ages, and I think we’d all love to get some sort of quidditch battle pack with a couple of players from each of those two teams. It seems unfair that the Quidditch Match set from 2018 has what you need to put Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff on the scoreboard but no players to play those games :/

While I’m definitely looking forward to a new version on the Burrow, I hope they save it for a Deathly Hallows wave and give us the wedding - to differentiate it from the 2010 set. Plus, my main hope for that price point in a HBP set is always going to be Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes.

I think the general thought process is that the GoF Christmas scene is ‘next up’ in what Christmases Lego can make. After all, the Chamber of Secrets Christmas is when the trio undertake their polyjuice plot, which I think we all agree involves too much for the minifigures for an advent calendar budget (given the the statue Harry and Ron hide behind to ambush Crabbe and Goyle was included in the ‘Sorcerer’s Stone’ calendar, I’m inclined to suspect Lego thinks so too). And Prisoner of Azkaban is the one movie where Christmas got completely cut out (despite being important in the book). So GoF is the next Christmas Lego can use for inspiration. And there are going to be some minifigure repeats in the advent calendars, it’s unavoidable. The number of new figures we got in the 2019 calendar was unprecedented, the Star Wars calendars for the last several years have only had one new minifigure each after all. And with only the Fantastic Beasts sets being retired this year, any reused figs are bound to be in other sets on the shelves when the advent calendar comes out. With that said, the Clocktower set has eight completely unique minifigures, I don’t think three of them (the main trio) showing up somewhere else will hurt its sales. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love an advent calendar based off of OotP or HBP, or even a generic Hogsmeade one to fill in for PoA, but Lego has to put a couple of reused minifigures into the calendars to keep costs down, and I think they’d rather those reused be one or two years old instead of same year releases. Yes, CMF figures are more detailed, but they also really emphasize the accessories, which Yule Ball figures really aren’t well suited for. Plus, Neville wears the same outfit as Harry so as soon as he appears in a set with a normal hair and face we could construct him ourselves (good for an advent calendar, since it’s a new gig with no new prints - likely to start a riot if it happens in a CMF).

Looks like the same decent range of prices (and therefore sizes) that we’ve seen the last couple of years. Now that we’ve know about five sets it would not surprise me if we got the same 5 in June/July and 2 in August paternities we’ve been getting in this theme again. So excited about the advent calendar confirmation - I’m expecting a Yule Ball theme this year. Speculating on the number of exclusive figures - I wouldn’t expect to get as many as last year, since the trio only had new torsos, Flitwick only had a new torso and head, and the statue had a single color change - and no new legs at all. I expect us to get at least one more repeat figure in this year’s calendar. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if our repeats were the Yule Ball versions of Harry, Ron and Hermione, with the exclusive figures being the Patil twins and/or a number of other Yule Ball options (Cho, Ginny and Neville, McGonagall, etc.).

Grimmauld Place‘a exteriors were shot in a real London that’s over two centuries old. It’s unique interiors would be a hit with Harry Potter fans and the classic city residence appearance of its exterior could draw in non Harry Potter fans. In contrast, I think you’d have a hard time finding a Harry Potter fan in the target age range for the sets who could immediately recall what the Fountain of Magical Brethren looked like in the movies without someone pointing at a screenshot of one of the split second intervals it’s visible in the background of a wide shot. It’s been cut so much from the movies that someone who hadn’t read the books wouldn’t even know what you were talking about if you mentioned it. None of the characters even acknowledge its existence. Also, the Ministry set you’re describing is small, Grimmauld Place is medium or large. There’s nothing really Grimmauld’s size from OotP for it to compete with, but there are plenty of potential smaller sets from OotP that Lego might potentially find easier to design and market than a ministry set. Also a reminder, the theme has being selling well enough to get an advent calendar last year and a second cmf this year - there are almost certainly more sets coming than just the four that we’ve already gotten leaked numbers for.

Uh... Kreacher was so important for delivering the essential backstory of the locket horocrux that JKR told the movie producers/writers that they had to include him in the OotP movie or they’d be shooting themselves in the foot. This isn’t like GoF where they already had a backup way for Harry to get gillyweed built into the books, without Kreacher the plot is stuck. Apparently I’m in the minority for thinking there is a decent chance of us getting Grimmauld Place. Lego absolutely loves standalone buildings after all (after vehicles of course) - Lego would definitely rather design a Grimmauld Place set than a Ministry of Magic set, since one is a straightforward building and the other is a series of massive and mostly empty underground chambers with no canon exteriors and Lego has been trying to avoid exteriorless dioramas in this theme for a decade and a half. Grimmauld Place is a manageable design, an iconic location everyone will recognize and doesn’t require aesthetic sacrifices for its impossible physics.

This is something I hadn’t thought of before. I waffled a bit on what villains to include in my own predictions, since most of the death eaters are either barely above background character status or don’t have a lot of outfit variation and are extremely likely to appear in sets (like I think will be the case for the Lucius Malfoy on your list), but Bellatrix is a fan favorite and her prison robes aren’t going to appear in a set, not to mention there’s an actual potential accessory with the ID card from her mug shot.

That would be awesome - the only problem is that Hagrid doesn’t fit on the current motorcycle mold, and from what I know we don’t really get new molds in polybags (especially not ones that big). Now, if, say, a “Flight of the Seven Potters” set came out and introduced a new motorcycle in that set, then a Hagrid and baby Harry polybag would just allow Lego to get their full money’s worth out of the mold.

Ugh, I know. Voldemort being able to fly without a broom was supposed to be super terrifying when it first happened at the beginning of DH. And Snape doing it to flee from McGonagall was supposed to be super shocking. Having everyone turn into smoke trails instead of just apperate was always annoying, and having them color coded based on side was just horrendous.

I think the thing is that most us us suspect Lego will want the Main trio to match - hence has-to-be-in-a-CMF Cat Hermione being grouped with the polyjuiced Harry and Ron. I also think you’re overestimating how likely the regular Crabbe and Goyle are to show up in sets - Crabbe only ever appeared as polyjuiced Ron in 2002 and the only other time Goyle appeared was the final battle set in 2011. If Lego ‘bends the rules’ a bit and gives them mid legs (there is precedent with Neville, and Crabbe and Goyle are supposed to be huge) and gives them full printed Slytherin Robes like we got for Gryffindor in series 1, then I think polyjuiced Harry and Ron would be right up there in CMF exclusive detail levels.

Oh, I 100% agree. We definitely need those robes for all the other houses (my biggest dilemma about the CMF is whether I’d rather get Ravenclaw robes Luna or Quidditch fan Luna - who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and one will be the book exclusive). I was only saying we wouldn’t get robes again in regards to the golden trio, who are guaranteed to appear in some variation or other in series 2.

Doesn’t mean it won’t still be a new character. One theory I’ve seen floating around is that it’ll be a Lockhart variant (with a different one appearing in the CMF).

Good thought! I didn’t even think of the DH1 polyjuiced forms as potential Golden trio variants for the CMF. Because getting new versions of Harry, Ron and Hermione is pretty much guaranteed in a Harry Potter CMF. But because they’re also pretty constant staples in the sets it makes it hard to choose variations that will stay exclusive, and Lego already played the fancy but generic Hogwarts robes in series 1. My personal guess for trio variants in series 2 was the CoS polyjuice scene - both because it would give us Crabbe and Goyle and because cat Hermione would need some new molds. The biggest question I had about that being realistic is the same one you had - what movies will this CMF cover. Series 1 pretty exclusively covered characters introduced in movies 1-4, with the notable exceptions of Luna and the Fantastic Beasts characters. Series 2 could easily focus on movies 5-8, but after the Disney series 2 threw my predictions out of wack so much I’m not inclined to take previous precedent as gospel, so I think there’s still good odds we’ll get characters like Sprout (the only head of house left to be updated), Pomfrey, Lockhart, etc.

‘What won’t appear in the sets?’ and ‘what will need a new mold?’ are good things to keep in mind when speculating about the CMF. But ‘what accessories would they have?’ Is also important, which is why I suspect that Lego will be saving Yule Ball variants for future advent calendars (which I’m certainly not going to complain about, since it will give them material for years to come).

Pajamas Slughorn doesn’t really make my list - we only got four members of Hogwarts staff in series 1, and with Lockhart, Sprout and Madam Pomfrey all more desirable, and more slots likely taken up by non-Hogwarts characters... I personally only expect to see a Slughorn variant in the CMF if they don’t include any Fantastic Beasts characters.

Not really. I’m the books, yes, the Three Broomsticks appears more often, but in the movies it only appears for short scenes in PoA and HBP - which is about the same as the Hog’s Head appearing in OotP and DH2 (and the Hog’s Head scenes are arguably more iconic, with Aberforth Dumbledore being a better known character than Madam Rosmerta).