I just had a conversation with a GW store manager. I know that this doesn't mean it's full proof but it gives us a little insider. He stated that the Hobbit range will be taken off the shelves of GWs by the end of this year but will still be sold online but will not receive anymore support. He said he has no idea if Dain (and the rest of the BotFA) will be released. He also hinted that this had less to do with declining sales and more to do with GW's beef with New Line. Apparently, the argument over the scale of Smaug was a very big issue and his size had to be negotiated and what we have now is the smallest that New Line would allow them. There were many other disagreements between New Line and GW over licensing which is why Gundabad orcs were finecast instead of plastic. He also concluded by stating his sorrow for the decline of the range but expressed enthusiasm for those communities who are still keeping this wonderful game alive.

Store managers really don't know anything about the future. Even if they do, they aren't supposed to talk about it. I would say this is little more than speculation.

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Unfortunately I have heard something too. Very similar to the OP.

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I think there is likely some truth in this. From a merchandising point of view the Hobbit has been an all round fail. Apparently new line were extremely hard nosed in the licensing negotiations and then the whole line failed to perform across the board, from lunch boxes to action figures.

The action figures released after AUJ were merely contract filling. And lego could get rid of the theme quick enough, dropping it in Jsnuary.

Why it underperformed is anyone's guess, but I think the hobbit was never going to be as popular as LotR and, LorR was reasonably true to the spirit of the books, the hobbit is a lumbering bloated shambles of a franchise, that failed to please anyone really.

I completely disagree on that. However, I have noticed just how awful the merchandise was for the Hobbit. LotR had some legit action figures that I still have over a decade later. The new ones are a completely different scale and genuine pieces of manure. There was a ton of merchandise for AUJ, but all of it was terrible. If I had seen a good action figure of Throrin/Azog/whoever, I would have gotten them. But there weren't. If that is New Lines fault, then dang them. THSBG hasn't had any marketing support. And if that is again due to New Line, again dang them. All of the LotR merchandise was awesome, very little of the Hobbit stuff was.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

I also disagree with the movies being failures. I was pleased. While they did not stick with the book, the book was originally intended to be nothing more than a children's bedtime story. If you read it carefully, you can see those characteristics in it very clearly. What Peter Jackson did was pull from the appendices to help us see and learn a little more about the history of middle earth. While some of it is made up, he did a masterful job with staying the course of the book and expanding on it overall.

As for what the rumors are, the manager at my GW store also said basically the same thing. That New Line was being very particular with their licensing agreements. I don't think that The Hobbit miniatures will even last to the end of the year. Get them while you can, cause in my store, they are already gone. GW has also already pulled all the sourcebooks of LOTR, so you can see that they are beginning to scale back big time.

Okay perhaps that was a slight exaggeration that they pleased no one on any level. I more meant that they failed to be either really good prequels to the LotR Trilogy, or to capture a new younger audience with Tolkien fever. I think that there will be lots of DVD/Blu Ray copies of the Hobbit trilogy that will sit on the shelf gathering dust, whilst people will continue to watch the LotR on a regular basis.

I don't have any problem with the changes and stuff brought in from the expanded writing of Tolkien... I just think they were poor films, badly scripted at times, really poorly paced and plotted and the characters failed to engage in the way they should have, basic movie making flaws really. And despite the brevity of the source material this didn't need to be the case. Some great movies have come from short stories and novellas.

But this is all way of topic, my point was that perhaps the movies failed to engage on the same level that the LotR did and this had a knock on effect with the marketing. (For example at world book day the kids were still all dressing up as The Avengers not Bilbo and Legolas... )

Wrong thread guys, talk about that stuff in the Has PJ lost his touch thread!

I haven't had any contact with Gw for some time, but my local manger (Exeter)
shows no regard to the Lotr and hobbit range.
He likes the models but I can see he's sick of it being on the shelves, as they sell almost none to my knowledge

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Well, the average worldwide gross for the trilogy was almost a billion dollars a piece. So lots of people enjoyed them.

The merchandising seems to be New Lines fault, like I said there was stuff for AUJ, but it was pretty cruddy. The next two movies had nothing but really expensive Lego sets. I'm pretty sure the common denominator between a lack of GW support and a complete lack of toys is New Line.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

All I say is I think this is just another mention of the inevitable. Anyone who hasn t thought/known after the Bofa they'd stop supporting was oblivious or lying to themselves. GW hasn't show us any respect in 1.5 years.

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GW managers can talk?

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I'm doubtful if the negotiations with New Line played as big a role as suggested, if only because the growing ineptitude GW have displayed by treating their customers and business partners with an attitude bordering on contempt predated the release of the Hobbit by many years and extends across all their ranges.

The relative lack of merchandise for DoS and BoFA IMO has less to do with attitude from New Line, and IMO more to do with the fact that AUJ merch didn't sell, being as mikeland put it, poor films.



Watching a film is not necessarily the same thing as enjoying it.

While critical opinion doesn't always reflect the opinion of the masses, IMO it's telling that the metacritic scores for the LotR Trilogy was 88-94 while that of the Hobbit Trilogy was 58-66.



Agree with this.

I tend to describe making a film, then making a good merchandising/transmedia experience and making the whole lot work as spinning a whole lot of plates.

Some of those Hobbit plates fell off.

Hobbit had more production-end stuff to deal with - not just New Line, but also MGM and whomever else. Having almost two and a half times the budget of LOTR, the thing meant a lot more funders, all of whom get a say in what goes on. The bigger the budget, the more demands to please everyone and make the whole experience as flat as possible.

On top of all that, maintaining a merchandising buzz is a bit of a black art. Star Wars, the great grand-daddy of merchandising success stories managed to crawl on, selling goodies until 1986 until they hit a wall. Took another 11 years or so for them to start up the process again, though it never really hit the same heights at in the mid-80s. LOTR was generation defining...until six months after the ROTK EE. Suddenly everyone had a whole pile of Middle-earth merchandising they couldn't shift.

GW's range was a minor success story in comparison. It kept chugging along. That GW has its own peculiarities in selling its stuff to us is beside the issue.

The Hobbit, running five years late, with all the issues surrounding funders and production companies - all of whom having a say in approvals - was always going to be a lot bigger a risk than fans might have assumed. If LOTR was bottling lightning, Hobbit was going to be re-bottling lightning. Throw in some rubbish elements like slightly different agreements (no you can't use your mounted Sons of Elrond in the same list as your Rivendell knights because reasons) and the Hobbit range was always going to be way more fiddly. Throw in some notable, though subjective, tonal differences and bottling that lightning was just going to get harder and harder.

Now, on top of all that, the film-makers were really making life harder for GW by sending them production shots of [thing] then changing [thing] late in post-production.

People have been waiting for years for, say, more Orcs. The Battle of the Five Armies was an obvious vector for said orcs. Probably plastic. What do we get? A few finecast orcs. Not really something you can run a mega battle with. People were talking about a re-boot of WOTR - not with those prices you are not.

In other words, the whole thing has been a bit of a mess. Surprised we got this far.

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This is what happens when business managers who are effectively isolated from the markets they are working in have all the power.

Smaug ... he could have been bigger... at this scale he's smaller than a troll with a catapult on his back.

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Stopped in at my local gw store on Friday just to see the status of the Hobbit merchandise. It had been moved around the store once again and if it could take up less space I don't see how and still be visible. All LOTR boxes have been moved to his store room and very few Hobbit boxes and fewer blisters.

He also stated that he had received an email stating that there wasn't going to be anymore Hobbit releases.

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

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Sad but no surprise.

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It's up to the One Ring to keep it going now!

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In my experience managers either never know anything, or they most definitely aren't allowed to say if they do.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

That appears to be how GW work these days, information is kept under a tight lid.

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I can understand that with new ideas and upcoming releases, but what's the point in them keeping quiet about the end of the line? It won't make any difference to them? Unless they're worried it'll make people lose interest prematurely?

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