Ever since George Lucas built an entertainment empire on the back of toy sales for “Star Wars,” the toy industry and the film industry have been closely intertwined. This has become an even closer relationship in the past few years as many classic toys have been built into their own film franchises (see “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe”). Now Mattel wants to take it one step further and develop new toys with their movie, TV and web spin offs all at the same time.
The toy company challenged their designers to come up with a new toy line with an eye towards developing franchises. Now they’ve taken the best of those new lines and presented it to film producer Neal Moritz, who they’ve partnered with for the project. The winning idea is built around an alien civilization that’s been living in the depths of Earth’s oceans. Mattel execs thought that the undersea aliens had the best potential for “transmedia” development – “transmedia” being the latest buzz word for things that can live in all of the many media outlets that are available these days.
Some critics lament the move as just one more step towards the death of cinema, but others see the creative potential. If Hollywood is going to be building film franchises around toys, why not make sure toys are being developed with an eye towards becoming great movies from the get go? Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, a company that specializes in developing transmedia stories behind toys, says that “it’s actually a great idea, with the caveat that they need to coordinate the story and have it all make sense well beforehand.” Gomez emphasizes that, while brand name toys may have name appeal, it’s great characters and stories that children identify with. If toys can be created with great characters and stories already built in to their back stories, then it only becomes easier to make the inevitable movie spin offs quality films.
