I really wish that were the case.
As a collector of primarily Marvel and DC movie related pieces, I've found that no matter what may be logical, it doesn't seem to apply to these movie pieces.
For example as well received as the Iron Studios 1/4 Civil War pieces were, and Prime 1 DCEU pieces, not many were really sought after. Yes the Ultimate WW set and Supes went to waitlist in under a day, but they like many 1/3 Prime 1 pieces only had an edition size of 350. No where near the edition sizes of a lot of comic book related items.
Whereas the MCU Iron Studio pieces more or less had the same edition size, and they took forever to sell out. Heck I think some are still available from my local store. Only a handful of us at most posted photos on the two forums and that was about it. Whereas the Prime 1 1/2 scales seemed to have a lot more posts on their individual threads, whereas the Iron Studio ones were barren a lot of the time.
Even after all this time, a lot of collectors still avoid Iron Studios pieces, and I wouldn't be surprised if many didn't even know that the 6 piece diorama set even existed. Though their Darth Vader did seem to do extremely well with an edition size three times that of those MCU pieces.
At least in the U.S. at Sideshow tho - the CW pieces didn't take that long to be gone IMO, all things considered. Far as I can tell here it's a combination of things - Iron Studios being a relatively new company; compared to Sideshow, WETA, and even XM their PR isn't very good, there was the whole Spidey thing - I mean to me they seemed like a real "niche" company and to top it all off they are in Brazil so if there's an issue - it's not like Sideshow where they'd be easier to get to. It's stuff that can make a U.S. buyer uneasy (unlike, say, WETA who has been around a long time).
But at SSC as I recall BP and WM went pretty fast; by the time I got off the fence about Falcon he was gone at SSC (eventually ended up at Popcultcha)...then of course the long wait; and all that time Iron Studios was pretty quiet
at least outside Brazil. (It's like those interested were waiting for the first in-hand reviews.)
Also re being a diorama and the flowing naturalistic poses - apparently some collectors didn't like that; or with Falcon he's just taking too much space. (LOL, what I love about IS is as far as I can tell, they go big or go home; and design they way they want
.)
IMO Iron Studios could do more if they wanted to make more outside-Brazil sales. But that's an "American" perspective where the thing is create a product and expand. I hafta guess but IS already has 3 Brazil concept stores. Maybe as a company they are happy enough with slow growth and not worrying about the "foreign" market 'coz they do well enough in South America.
Heck, the first "real" images I saw of the dio were digging through YT vids to look up CCXP footage. It didn't cross IS' mind, apparently, to even put some pics up
. It took a Brazilian collector and a comic book store (FanToys) to do that.
Finally - these weren't cheap pieces. So IMO you had to be sure. And 1/4 scale. Well, anyway, just some thoughts. I'd love to talk to the Iron Studios people in person. I do get the impression they care about what they are doing. And for the collector - at least for me whatever misfires there might have been - like supposedly a wing problem with Falcon (I dunno, I thought the packing was fine) - Iron Studios has made its ground up and then some.
Maybe IS will always be "niche" pieces at least for the 1/4 or 1/3 scale
. Movie specific; naturalistic poses, bold designs. But d*mn they are gorgeous and IMO worth every penny. If IS can keep the quality up - hope so!
