This week, DST Chuck covers all your questions about Minimates! Questions start after the break!

Brian Desautel
Has any consideration been given to making pro sport Minimates? i.e. MLB Minimates, NFL Minimates, etc. . . if so which sport and which team would you do first? As a follow up question, which MLB team do you follow, and do the Red Sox really have a shot in the post season between the Angles and the Rays being so dominant this year?

DSTChuck: Brian since you asked, YES I am a sports fan and love the Red Sox– I went to my first game at Fenway when I was 6. The Sox crushed the Angels as I expected but the Rays will be a hard fought struggle with the Sox coming out on top in 6 or 7 games. While I would love to do sports Minimates, the league and players licensing can be a bit daunting and sports figures of any kind do not traditionally sell well in the markets Minimates currently utilize so we’d need to tackle all-new sales avenues on top of the other hurdles…but you never know.

Tony Shilling
Hey! Just wanna say that I am a long time, though somehow young fan of minimates. I was wondering if you or DST has a panel for minimates at the New York Comic-Con 2009, or if any associated licenses of yours will have one. If yes, will any exclusives be given out/sold? Also, I have a question about something, or rather 2 somethings. I’d really like to know: Rocky Minimates; will we be seeing Rocky 3 or 4 box sets? DC: You’ve all probably heard this a million times; Any shot at box sets, or are they really dead? It’s a shame, because those were my favorite two lines… Thanks!

DSTChuck: Wow Tony you like to plan ahead! I think I’d be happy to get my marketing folks caught up on their current stuff before we think about next Feb… SO my best guess is yes, we will have some sort of panel (we have the last two years). I have NO idea if we’ll budget a giveaway for the show but it’s POSSIBLE. A full exclusive seems like a long shot but a debut or a shared one is possible. I think Rocky is done for us. We’ve tried twice now to solicit sufficient orders to go forward with Rocky 3 and no luck. As I am sure you have heard, DC Minimates are a DC Direct item and we just do what they tell us SO you have to ask them if more might be coming someday.

Daniel Sicchierolli
I am looking for the iron maiden EDDIE minimates, somewhere in time, the number, of the ROCK series 2. Where can I find it?

DSTChuck: The old large-sized Rock MM only exist in the secondary market now. I don’t even thing we have one sample around after all this time.

Brian Petersen
Will we ever see anymore Astonishing X-Men minimates like Armor, Agent Brand or Danger?

DSTChuck: While it’s possible, I will say we don’t have any of them line up for the immediate future.

Scott Potis
Hey DST, I am from the minimatemultiverse, so I am just asking my ASK DST question here. How do you plan out the Marvel mates? Are you only allowed to do a certain number of waves, boxed sets, previews exclusives, con exclusives, etc.. each year? Also, is seeing movie mates between waves of comic themes going to be a common thing now? thanks! the punisher=D

DSTChuck: Hey Scott! If you have been a member of the Multiverse for maybe over a year, then I would think you would have heard the stories of me Digger and a case of beer deciding the first 4 lines….Ah those were the days… But now Robert is around and he makes us worry about production, costing, tooling capacity and all that yucky stuff that needs to be considered to make a full line. The Movie lines will slow down in 09 for sure since Marvel only has one movie next year (Wolverine) but in 2010 with all the stuff they have planned, you could see a good number of movie based releases.

Scott Smith
I’m really enjoying what your doing with the Minimates line and was curious about how you come up with who is placed in a set (not including boxsets or movie mates)?

DSTChuck: Well something like that (all kidding aside) is too much for a simple Q&A like this but let me try and give a short version. For the waves of Marvel, the first thing we do is figure out how many waves we want to do and what times of the year we want them to come out. Next thing we do is look at as much of the Marvel publishing and production schedule as we’re given access to. Based on that Robert will make a list of characters that can be done with no tooling and Matt will make a list of fan request that have come in or characters we kind of “need” to do to finish teams, sets etc… After that I pretty much sit down with pen and paper, turn on some Bruce and close my door for most of the day. Once I have the groupings I want, I send them to Matt and Robert for review. Matt checks from his end and Robert checks with the designers and worries if it can be done in budget. Matt and Robert will then “dicuss” between them the changes they want to pitch me. I get their responses, usually ignore them and make the final (or what we hope is final) spreadsheet. Before you ask, YES Matt has asked for Deadpool and Cpt. Britain EVERY time.

DSTMatt: Don’t forget Madelyne Prior!

Chris Becker
Over the last year we’ve seen some really great Minimate licenses that really go beyond the typical comic book superheroes and/or the Star Trek, like Silence of the Lambs, Platoon & The Man with No Name. Can we expect to see more of the same originality and “out-of-the-box” thinking for 2009? Can you give any hints? Thanks

DSTChuck: We’ve had LOTS of discussions for some ideas we think are pretty cool but so far none of them are signed, so I’ll have to hold of on the hints for a little while longer.

Tim Taylor
Does the shift to box sets for the upcoming Marvel movie licenses (Punisher & Spirit) imply that the intention is to re-focus the two pack waves back onto Comic based characters or was this just as a result of not having enough main characters to fill out a full wave for the movies? Also you can put me down on the list for asking for a Captain Britain minimate!

DSTChuck: No I don’t think it does. The decision of whether to do 2 packs or 4 packs is still the same. For the Punisher movie and The Spirit, we felt we had a pretty tight and defined universe to work with, so we went with 4 packs. If they ever did something like X-Men 4, I’d expect we’d do two packs to deal with as many of the characters as possible.

Joshua Hesselgrave
Hey guys. Thanks for what you’re doing with the Q& A stuff. It really goes beyond what is expected from a toy company! I suppose to me this is a Minimate related question, but it also could go towards a lot of lines. How much influence do the fans contacting you really have? We’ve seen over the years people suggesting the same figures over and over sometimes-how much does that affect the decision making process? Or does it just depend on the situation? I’m just a little curious if it helps when fans keep asking for certain things or if it really doesn’t make much of a difference. Thanks for listening.

DSTChuck: Glad you like the Q&A. Yes we do pay attention to fan request, but yes there are lots of other factors for us to consider. One factor is the buyer’s thoughts. If they don’t think they can sell an item then they will not buy it so DST can’t make it…seems simple right? The other fact is the overall line-plan and the budget. Some figures that would be very cool to make are just TOO costly for us to sell enough to make money.

So yes we do listen to fan requests (I see them in the Q&A) but it’s just one part of the process.

JP Chism
I purchased the Pegasus Six and Dead Pegasus Six this weekend after finally finding them and was disappointed to see their hair color was different from the prototypes. Instead of platinum blonde, the Sixes were bright yellow blonde. What prompted this change, and is there any hope that future Sixes and Starbucks will have the proper platinum blonde hair color? The New Caprica Minimate set looks great, but Starbuck’s hair is too yellow. PS: Any chance of seeing Firefly/Serenity Minimates?

DSTChuck: Sorry about that, I’d have to go back and pull a sampling to see if it was just some figures or a global issue. I am not aware off the top of my head to any changes requested after we created the paint master. As for Serenity all I can say is never say never, but…

Joseph Wagner
With BSG coming to it’s end next year, how many more Minimate waves can we expect from the series? Have “troop builder” sets ever been considered for the Colonial Marines to help face off against the large amount of Cylons available? Given the general success of the Star Trek, BSG and Back to the Future Minimates, are there any off SciFi properties that are being looked at as a potential Minimate line? Any plans for exclusive Minimates to be released with any of the future BSG DVD releases (like what was done with the Ultimate Avengers DVD releases)? Thanks for taking my questions!

DSTChuck: Ok let’s go one at a time. Yes the show is ending and to some extent it does put a sort of cap on where the line can go, BUT there are so many characters in the show that we can keep going as long as sales are there. So it’s kind of up to you. I don’t think we have any plans for Marines army-builders. Yes Sci-Fi is doing pretty well for us and you can see from our library its kind of becoming our niche…We’d love to do a Minimate pack in with the DVD but that’s up to the team at the studio that creates the DVD marketing program.

Thomas Bean
Hey guys! I’m a big fan of your work, and a huge fan of Minimates. I was a little sad that the Street Fighter line got canceled, but I think I’ll survive. I was wondering (and I know licensing can be a pain) if you all ever thought about Megaman/Rockman minimates? There are a ton of great characters and their simplistic forms would translate perfectly! Just a thought! Always a fan! Tom

DSTChuck: Sorry I have to be honest. That’s one we have never discussed.

Luke Porter
Marvel minimates fans often look to the classic poster showing concept art of numerous marvel characters and wonder if certain ones will see the light of day, such as Toad. Have there been other non-movie Marvel minimates that have made it to the concept art stage without being produced? If yes, care to share which ones? We like having new obsessions.

DSTChuck: That original poster was just done for the sake of being something cool to show, but it kind of took on a life all its own… YES there are several Minimates that we have done designs on that have not been made yet for whatever reason. Thor and Loki were designs for over a year before they ended up fining a home. Deadpool has been done for two years now and there are several others, BUT less than there used to be. That folder is getting skinnier and skinner.

Danny Marton
If the Star Trek minimates continue past wave 5, we will continue to see episode specific characters like Gladiator Kirk and Spock from Spock’s Brain as well as regular uniformed crews of the other series ?

DSTChuck: If we were to go past wave 5 we’d follow the current template.

Jim Bojan
The Borg Minimates is sweet… I bought two (two-packs) Picard and Borg. I really wish you still made the 3 inch Minimates. They were more sturdy and we seem to get more paper and plastic in the package than actual Minimates. I still enjoy the 2 nich Minimates and I understand it saves you guys money on plastic… but I miss the 3 inch Minimates. You should try an online order test 3 inch Borg… I will buy 10 of them. - Also please get the forum from the old days back. Fan of your company.

DSTChuck: I am sorry but the 3″ Minimates and the forum are both as dead as Bucky or Jason Todd… No seriously, we decided years ago that the bigger figures just lost so much of the effect we wanted in the line because of the larger size that we had to shrink it down, and at this point we’re pretty happy with where we are.

Jeff of the Miniacs
Waay back when the idea of the moviemates debuted as posters at Toyfair there was a poster done up for Rain Man in the group with the rest. So far we have gotten every other movie that was shown there but this one. Did something happen with the final approval of these ones? I really enjoy these boxset/2 pack approach to these properties and hope to see some of them like Rocky and Back to the Future continue onwards!

DSTChuck: Yeah… Rain Man is not something we’ll be producing. Seems we ran into a few issues with that line. As much as everyone here would LOVE to do more Rocky esp wave 3 I think its pretty done. BTTF however is still something we’re considering.

Henry Woo
I thought that at one point earlier this year there was a strong rumor that Heroes were going to be released in the Minimates format. Can you provide any update in terms of were you close at one stage and is there any possibility of this becoming a reality in the near future? Would have loved to get my hands on a Future Hiro minimate with his sword.

DSTChuck: There has been surprising little progress on Heroes so we’ll just have to see.

Juan Alberdi
What are the chances of seeing Resident Evil minimates? Its a top-tier gaming franchise and successful movie franchise, so its pretty well known.

DSTChuck: Resident Evil is a GREAT property and one we would consider it for Minimates for sure, but to date there has been very little interest from the buyers, but were not done trying.