Animated Pirates Line Cancelled

[Shropt]

PETITION TIME!

For what? If they didn't have enough orders to justify the statues, what makes you think there will be enough unpaid signatures to justify them?

 

[SolidLiquidFox]

I wonder if they can release them as Guild Exclusives or AFX Exclusives. At 500 units or so everyone of course will jump in the bandwagon...

 

[Giant Chicken]

Just recieved my email from Razors Edge that my orders have been cancelled. This totally sucks! I love this line. If they would have put out Will and the Captain that would have put the line up to 5 figures. GG could have then made another 5-7 figures and called it a day. How much work would that be compared to all of there SW lines. Gosh! I invest close to $200 on the first figures only to be told Thats It!

I suppose I will ditch Elizabeth and then use Jack and Jones as bookends? Lame.

 

[Fritz]

You suck Gentle Giant!

 

[tomandshell]

Jack and Davy will still go well together. Elizabeth is going to start selling for $5 on eBay.

 

[Karma]

Email from GG:

Hello Gentle Giant Collectors,

We just wanted to take the time to clarify some information regarding our Animated Pirates of the Caribbean Maquette line. Although we announced the cancellation of distributor orders for Will Turner and Captain Barbossa Maquettes at the beginning of this week, we are still producing the 2 items. These items will be available directly through Gentle Giant and limited to 1,000 pcs world wide. They will be available to purchase through our website www.gentlegiantltd.com in spring of 2008, and are currently still available to pre-order. We have not cancelled preorders previously placed through the website. You must be logged into your account to see the pre-order.

Thanks,
Gentle Giant Ltd.

 

[Fritz]

You suck Gentle Giant!

Based on the above post, maybe you're not so bad.

 

[The Mike]

Hello Gentle Giant Collectors,

We just wanted to take the time to clarify some information regarding our Animated Pirates of the Caribbean Maquette line. Although we announced the cancellation of distributor orders for Will Turner and Captain Barbossa Maquettes at the beginning of this week, we are still producing the 2 items. These items will be available directly through Gentle Giant and limited to 1,000 pcs world wide. They will be available to purchase through our website www.gentlegiantltd.com in spring of 2008, and are currently still available to pre-order. We have not cancelled preorders previously placed through the website. You must be logged into your account to see the pre-order.

Thanks,
Gentle Giant Ltd.

Interesting development...but at least they'll be made.

 

[Fritz]

I tried to pre-order through the website after I got the email but it said both are available for wait-list only.

 

[Indiana Fett]

I tried to pre-order through the website after I got the email but it said both are available for wait-list only.

I just had the same thing happen. You have to have an account and be logged in, then you can place them in your cart instead of just adding them to your wishlist. I made an account and pre-ordered them. Got my invoice too!

Sucks to be paying $90 instead of the $71.99 I had them pre-ordered from Jason at MWC for, but hey, I agree with The Mike, at least they ARE getting made BEFORE the line is cancelled.

I would have loved a few more characters, but honestly, at least there's these 5...Especially Barbossa...he looks to be the coolest of the bunch! And Will is a great compliment to Lizzy...would have REALLY sucked if they did cancel before making these last 2 figures...

 

[Agent23]

yea Fritz, as soon as you login to the GG site, you will be able to pre-order Barbosa or Will Turner.

I just pre-ordered Barbosa for choopie.



Even thou the line has been canceled, I still think its nice for the fans of this line that GG is at least offering Turner and Barbosa.

 

[Fritz]

I did login and preorder them and they are in my account and I have an order number but they show up as "Pre-Order Type: Waitlist".

 

[tomandshell]

These five will be good enough for the line. It would have been horrible if they hadn't followed through on these last two. I would certainly have liked to see several other characters, but these main five will still go well together.

Now how long before these wait list orders get converted by GG? I have no experience doing a wait list order through their website. I placed an order for one of each, but it says "wait list."

 

[Indiana Fett]

These five will be good enough for the line. It would have been horrible if they hadn't followed through on these last two. I would certainly have liked to see several other characters, but these main five will still go well together.

Now how long before these wait list orders get converted by GG? I have no experience doing a wait list order through their website. I placed an order for one of each, but it says "wait list."

Hmmm...you're correct Tom, it does say "WAITLIST". Here's what it says in the Order History tab of my account:

Animated Will Turner Maquette
Product Available: 4 / 2008
Pre-Order Type: Waitlist
Delivery Status: PENDING
Quanity: 1
Subtotal: US$90.00

Animated Captain Barbossa Maquette
Product Available: 4 / 2008
Pre-Order Type: Waitlist
Delivery Status: PENDING
Quanity: 1
Subtotal: US$90.00

Status is 'pending', so perhaps it says 'waitlist' until it actually ships? who knows? With an edition size of 1,000 though, we should all be able to get one. Davy and Elizabeth were edition sizes of 1,000, and they're still available most places.

 

[The Craw]

this makes me fear for other GG lines that dont sell well. particularly the LOTR busts and animated figs. i hope they dont cancel those as well.

 

[scubasteve]

I'm thinking the wait list will go through once the allocation for the other retailers is freed up. At least I hope so...

Really want these two

 

[Indiana Fett]

this makes me fear for other GG lines that dont sell well. particularly the LOTR busts and animated figs. i hope they dont cancel those as well.

I hear ya there Craw...Knowing that the LOTR Saruman and Gandalf animated figs are all marked down at retailers with an edition size of only 1,000 each has me fearing for this line as well. I hope not though...We need an animated Aragorn, Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin AT LEAST to go with the upcoming Gimli and Legolas. Of course let's not stop there...I'd love them to do animated treatments for Boromir, Faramir, Eomer, Eowyn, Arwen, Theoden, Elrond, Galadriel...Lurtz, Orcs, Easterlings, Uruk-Hai, SAURON!!!

I'm thinking the wait list will go through once the allocation for the other retailers is freed up. At least I hope so...

Really want these two

I hear ya there Steve. When news came out a couple days ago about the cancellation of the line, I was REALLY hoping they'd at least produce these 2 for the fans...and they are, so that's GREAT!

 

[The Godfather]

Unfortunately I have a feeling this is going to become a more common place activity from GG. I have nothing to back that up other than rumors that are being kicked around.

I think everyone here knows how the GG pieces have been selling lately on ebay. The lack of dealer and consumer confidence in the piece being able to hold their value even at the good discount you would get from dealer on a pre-order is finally making its way up to the top. Simply I do not think that many people are pre-ordering GG. It is coming down to many distributors etc are probably getting tired of holding the bag for GG as well as GG is getting tired of their product being sold constantly on ebay many times for far less than wholesale cost. As I see it there are only a few ways two ways to correct this.

1. Lower the edition sizes by thousands on some pieces effectively meeting the true demand for the products.

2. Move to selling directly to the customer at the msrp and cut out the distributors and dealers.

3. Cut out the distributors and sell directly to the customer and retailer giving them more control over pricing much like Sideshow does.


For years dealers have bore the brunt of holding the GG stock when the editions were to high or pieces didn't turn out the way they were expected. IMO GG never really worried about it but the market changed and they just kept plugging away business as usual. Their move to start selling direct was most likely due to a drop in sales and a desire to keep more the money that was being made from the Sales of their product which is understandable. Unfortunately when they made that move they still did not take a hard look at their license and the edition sizes. In this market I can not think of any lower tier character that can sell 5000 - 6000 pieces most of the time the Upper tier selling that many is pushing it. You would think it would have been apparent after the Yoda and Vader edition sizes of what was it 3 years ago that something needed to change.

 

[Shropt]

I completely agree with what the Godfather has said.

I'll also add that it seems all of the licenses that GG holds are in a slump right now.

Star Wars has no movies and the TV series are a ways off.

Harry Potter only has 2 more movies left.

LOTR has no movies left and the Hobbit is a waaaaays off if ever.

Halo is a great game and sells millions but has never been a collectible seller.

Seriously, what license do they have that really has major collector and casual collector backing right now?

 

[Geb]

The only real problem with lowering the edition sizes and cutting out distributors is going to mean a price hike for all of the products...and then LESS people will be buying. While this works and may be the solution, it will be a major step for GG to go that route.

Just my .02

Geb