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Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

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Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Tumnus the Faun » Nov 28, 2010 4:10 pm

I've been looking here and on other websites trying to find info about upcoming 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' action figures and toys. Has anyone heard anything yet? It seemed like toys were available at least two months before the release of both 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and 'Prince Caspian'. I'm begining to worry that Fox won't be marketing Narnia toys or maybe they'll wait to see how successful the film becomes.
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Griffle » Nov 28, 2010 4:41 pm

First of all, always check the VDT List of Merchandise/LOM thread for all the latest information on VDT merchandise and collectibles. ;) ;)

As for the action figures; sadly, it appears as though there won't be any for VDT. The closest you'll be able to get to owning VDT action figures is buying the French miniature porcelain figures, but those are about an inch high and have zero articulation.

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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby icarus » Nov 29, 2010 3:33 pm

As far as merchandise goes i believe there are two main reasons why there is next to nothing available for this movie.

The first reason is that i believe Fox didn't want to run such a vast licensing and merchandising programme as Disney did on Prince Caspian. One of the reasons that was cited for Disney's departure in the Los Angeles Times article that came out shortly after, was that it was as much due to the failure of Prince Caspian to score big in the "additional revenue streams" as they are known, as it was to do with the boxoffice results. Merchandise is a big deal for a company like Disney - the only reason the Disney/Pixar film "Cars" (the only Pixar film to attract any negative critical reaction) is getting a sequel is because the brand has been consistently amongst its top merchandise sellers despite the fact that its been several years since the movie came out, whilst other movies such as Wal-E, Ratatouille and Up which have all been big critical and commercial successes, but have all failed to take off in the merchandise arena in the same way that Cars did. Anyway, I'm not quite sure how the finances are handled in the world of brand licensing, and how much the Licensor (Fox or Disney as it would of been) bears the cost when the merchandise fails to sell as anticipated, but evidently it was significant enough for Fox not to want to pursue the merchandising in the same way that Disney did.

This fact was cited when it emerged that the Video Game adaptation was cancelled - The game makers who had previously been in an arrangement with Disney Interactive had held talks with Fox about continuing the game with them, but Fox ultimately decided they did not wish to go in that direction. In fact, i believe there were quite a few merchandising deals for VDT in place before Disney left the franchise, but that once they left all the deals which had been previously agreed with Disney Consumer products fell through - PlayAlongToys for example were reported to be developing VDT toys back around the time of Prince Caspian, but it has recently been established that they no longer hold the license for Narnia and won't be producing any products for the upcoming movie.

However, in spite of all that i do know that Fox did try and attract new licensees to the franchise, as it was reported at several of the big licensing trade fairs that they were pushing hard to attract new vendors to the Narnia license, but evidently no-one seemed to pick it up. Which i believe is probably the second main reason why there is no Narnia merchandise at the moment - even with Fox wanting to keep things tighter and smaller scale, i think they ultimately failed to convince any merchadisers that the Narnia brand was one that was worth them investing in. Most of the companies out there probably saw how badly most of the Prince Caspian merchandise lines did and decided they weren't going to take a risk on a brand that they did not see any financial viability in, especially in the current economic climate. Part of me still can't believe there wasn't at least one company that was willing to take a gamble - it is afterall a major hollywood movie, and you would of thought loads of smaller firms would of bitten their own hand of just to be associated with it, but the evidence speaks for itself - there is pretty much nothing out there to buy at all.

That said, there are quite a lot of promotional freebies out there covering all sorts of different products - most of them are only available in competitions and offers and such, but no doubt most of it will make its way onto eBay in due course. I was thinking about making a list of all the different promotional items that are out there, but i'm kind of busy at the moment (though not busy enough to stop me writing this massive long post evidently ;) ) however, if you trawl through the "Advertising and Promotions" thread and the "Competitions and Sweepstakes" thread in the GMD Forum, you should be able to find most of them.
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Griffle » Nov 29, 2010 3:45 pm

Oh, yeah, you should probably go and check out the threads mentioned by icarus. The list of merchandise thread I'm spending a lot of my spare time editing probably isn't worth your time anyway. How embarrassing. :ymblushing:
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby icarus » Dec 01, 2010 3:14 pm

You do yourself a discredit. The list you've compiled there is mightily impressive. Even more impressive considering how little there is to work with - amazed that you even found those porcelain figurines existed.

Anyway, if you wanted to add some of the Promotional Freebies to the list of merchandise, here is my reckoning of what is currently out there, though whether or not you would count any of it as being merchandise in the truest sense i'm not sure since none of it is actually available to purchase, though the Sun offer has now reached the sufficient stage of tokens for people to send away for it. Sadly of all the prize packs its probably the least exciting, but i'm intrigued by the packaged figurine it seems to come with - it does not seem to be of the porcelain set.

Shoulder bag,
Link 1
Link 7

A5 Journal / Notebook
Link 1
Link 2
Link 8

Snow Dome Frame,
Link 1
Link 2
Link 4
Link 8

Pen / Floating Pen
Link 1
Link 2
Link 8

Kaleidoscope
Link 1
Link 2
Link 5
Link 7
Link 8

3D Dawn Treader Puzzle
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5
Link 6

Black Teaser Poster T-Shirt
Link 3
Link 5

Blue Dawn Treader T-Shirt
Link 4
Link 8

Christmas Bauble
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5

Umbrella
Link 3
Link 5

Hat and Scarf Set
Link 5

Magnetic Book Mark
Link 5

Make Your Own Christmas Card Set
Link 5

Set of 4 Christmas Cards
Link 6

Christmas Sack:
Link 6

Sticker Book:
Link 6

Figurine (Reepicheep only?)
Link 6

Set of Figures (?)
Link 8
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Griffle » Dec 01, 2010 3:37 pm

Well, I've already added some of these, like the 3D Puzzle and the sticker book, not knowing their origin so I might just as well add the rest. I mean, some of this is already on eBay, and I'm sure the rest will end up there eventually. It always does.

Thanks for the links and the time you've put into writing all that code. ;)

I take it it's OK for me to upload those images/scans to my LOM photo gallery?

The miniature porcelain figures weren't that hard to find actually, figures like these have been made both for LWW and PC. They've even made a new set of figures for LWW produced in 2010, that include an Aslan figure that looks like Aslan from PC. "I know, it's confusing" ;)

Btw icarus, let me know if you feel like parting with your "Book of Incantations" journal. ;)
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Lirenel » Dec 04, 2010 12:46 pm

All I want is a calendar, but it looks like I won't get my wish. I *still* have my PC calendar up, and I had so been looking forward to having one for VODT. :((
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby StBrianofMinneapolis » Dec 04, 2010 10:13 pm

Tumnus the Faun wrote:I've been looking here and on other websites trying to find info about upcoming 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' action figures and toys. Has anyone heard anything yet? It seemed like toys were available at least two months before the release of both 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and 'Prince Caspian'. I'm begining to worry that Fox won't be marketing Narnia toys or maybe they'll wait to see how successful the film becomes.


Depending on how crafty you are, you can make your own VDT toys. I have cast almost the entire movie with toys from other movies. I may post some pics sometime soon in my "Custom Narnia Action Figures" thread. a couple of these do simply borrow from the PC line. There was already a good, faun, satyr, minotaur and Dwarf in that line.
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby icarus » Dec 05, 2010 9:48 am

Griffle wrote: Btw icarus, let me know if you feel like parting with your "Book of Incantations" journal. ;)


I was a bit puzzled as to what you meant there for a minute - but no, we didn't get the official goodie bag with our World Premiere tickets, i think that was only given out to the people with Press Passes and/or the official guests/dignitaries.

I did get the official programme for the event though (mostly full of adverts from well wishing companies lending their support to the event) which was quite nice and we got a free bag of popcorn in a VDT themed cardboard box sponsored by Sky TV (i'm guessing its the standard one they will have at all Odeon Cinemas), which yes is as cheap as it sounds, lol. The tickets themselves were nice collectibles though - quite sturdy and nicely laminated:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8122966@N0 ... 509073340/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8122966@N0 ... 509073340/

Anyway, NarniaFrance has got some pretty decent pictures of the boxed porcelain figures set. It genuinely does seem to be one of the only pieces of properly boxed and branded items of merchandise available at retail, and not simply something which exists as a promotional item for the purposes of advertising the movie.

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http://www.lemondedenarnia.com/news/article.php?id=2668
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Griffle » Dec 05, 2010 10:41 am

Hmm...I was wondering about how they were packaged. Guess I'm missing one piece. :D I'll have to buy this later on I guess.

I managed to get hold of two copies of that journal btw, so I'm set. It's a shame you didn't get the goodiebag.

Do you have any information about what else was in it?
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby icarus » Dec 05, 2010 11:22 am

In the World Premiere goodie bag? Poggin from AslansCountry.com got one and took some photos of it which can be seen on the link below. I'd assume Tirian from NarniaWeb and Paul from NarniaFans also got sent the same set.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... 5785069180

Interesting to note that the umbrella here seems to be a small black fold-up umbrella, and not the full length blue/white umbrella seen in other goodie bag sets.
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Griffle » Dec 05, 2010 1:17 pm

Yup. Guess this one is more exclusive. ;)

Let's see if I got this right:

¤ Original Soundtrack CD.
¤ Book of Incantations Journal (in black box with logo in gold).
¤ VDT Umbrella.
¤ VDT tote bag. (Guess the rest of the stuff was in the bag?)

Anything more?

Btw, The Queen, The Duke and the Cast & Crew were at the Empire, is that correct?

EDIT: Found this on eBay:

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COMPASS JOURNAL

That's right, there's an actual compass set into this journal. :)
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby icarus » Dec 05, 2010 2:28 pm

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were both at the Odeon, which is the larger cinema and was the more expensively ticketed price of the two cinemas, which is where my tickets were for. Annoyingly i was in the lower-stalls of the theatre, and the Queen was in the upper balcony, so i didn't actually get to see her in person, but they showed her arrival and her meet-and-greet with the cast and crew in the upstairs lobby on the cinema screen, but it would of been nice to see her for real. Guess you needed to upgrade your ticket a few price notches to get that privilege.

The cast and director Michael Apted did introductory presentations before the showing of the movie in both the Odeon and the Empire, though i'm fairly certain the cast ended up watching the film in the Odeon as i believe Simon Pegg commented that he kept looking over to try and get a look at the Queen wearing 3D glasses during the performance.

Paul Martin uploaded some of his photos of the premiere to the NarniaFans Facebook Page. He was at the Empire Cinema i believe, seems their tickets had the snowy Aslan design on them, compared to mine which had the main poster design:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... 6946345897

Also seems the Umbrella was the Blue/White one afterall. Guess it just looked like a black case in the AslansCountry photo, plus it obviously has some decent telescopic extension on it, as i saw a few in use on the Red Carpet and it didn't look like a compact to me:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ... 6946345897

here is the full album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 ... 897&ref=mf
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Griffle » Dec 05, 2010 11:36 pm

Thanks for the info!

I found another version of that miniature porcelain figure set from France:

Image

The one you found is the more exclusive. This one doesn't have the Dawn Treader piece.

EDIT: Counted the figures on the photo and ended up with 12. Two additional figures compared to the other set. (if you don't count the Dawn Treader piece) The left and middle piece/figure in the middle row are new/different. The middle figure looks like Liliandil to me, possibly the White Witch? The left one is a bit more tricky though.

EDIT: Additional figures are Liliandil and Coriakin. Makes sense.
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby stateofgreen » Dec 08, 2010 6:12 pm

Lirenel wrote:All I want is a calendar, but it looks like I won't get my wish. I *still* have my PC calendar up, and I had so been looking forward to having one for VODT. :((

I feel your pain. I was actually looking for a VDT calendar myself here in the States today at my local Barnes and Noble, but they don't have any. :( Wonder if any will be issued later? I know they used to be put out by the Mead Corporation, but don't know if that is related to the stuff licensed when the franchise was under Disney? I still have the two from LWW.
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Re: Where's all the VDT merchandise?!

Postby Pattertwigs Pal » Dec 09, 2010 6:51 pm

I really want a calendar too. If they don't come out with one, I'll probably make my own.
Fox has come out with some merchandise! :D They have a spot for suggestions too.
http://foxshop.seenon.com/?pagemax=all& ... -of-narnia

The have shirts, mugs, etc.
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