Is Bowen the Problem???

[Matches Malone]

Originally Posted by Storm Lover

Thank you my fellow collectors for your perceptive responses. At this late stage in the negotiation game I would be very surprised (and pleased) if this deal goes through.

We go through this nail biting experience every year, but this time it's really critical. Getting tired of it.

Before I'm done with Bowen I was hoping to get Domino (X-Force version), Spiral, Longshot and Kazar/Zabu. If not, oh well.

Not to throw fuel on the fire but even "if" BD were to acquire and announce a license renewal tomorrow Disney/Marvel has a moratorium on the X-men and FF licenses right now,pending working something out with Fox, so those characters would likely be off the table .

[fateel]

Maybe a silly question dude, if getting/renewing the Marvel licence is so problematic, why doesn't Bowen try to get the DC licence instead?

[nbr3bagshotrow]

Originally Posted by fateel

Maybe a silly question dude, if getting/renewing the Marvel licence is so problematic, why doesn't Bowen try to get the DC licence instead?

He may have. We just don't know.

[alshadow]

Originally Posted by Matches Malone

Not to throw fuel on the fire but even "if" BD were to acquire and announce a license renewal tomorrow Disney/Marvel has a moratorium on the X-men and FF licenses right now,pending working something out with Fox, so those characters would likely be off the table .

But aren't those licenses just for the movies? Kotobukiya churns out X-Men statues regularly.

To contribute to the thread, I think Bowen is still negotiating a deal with Marvel where he could still turn a profit. Marvel licensing is probably at an all time high with its films' popularity right now.

Or Marvel is forcing Bowen to put out movie versions of the characters.

[Storm Lover]

As I said before - "oh well" life goes on. We can all hope that another company produces these characters. Koto seems to be doing a great job with X-Men DRS and X-Force.

[Marvelito]

I have wondered the same thing myself "is Bowen what's holding Bowen back from getting their contract renewed?" I think think it may be a combination of things at this point. For one I'm sure Marvel has raised their guarantees up from the previous contract. The way their licenses used to work before Disney was involved was that they would charge you 10% of your sales, and you would need to commit to a guaranteed dollar amount of royalties you would pay for the duration of the contract whether you met the sales or not. That's industry standard in most cases, although I don't know if Disney operates differently. The second thing which is probably complicating the first is if there's a hold on including X-Men characters, that could put a real damper on things being that Bowen sells a bunch of X-Men related characters, probably more than Avengers etc. More than the royalties, I could see this being a real sticking point and would make sense as to the lengthy delay in signing the contract.

[travis]

Originally Posted by fateel

Maybe a silly question dude, if getting/renewing the Marvel licence is so problematic, why doesn't Bowen try to get the DC licence instead?

Originally Posted by nbr3bagshotrow

He may have. We just don't know.

Man if Bowen gets the DC License and starts churning out pieces as fast as he did with Marvel... Oh man.. It will fulfill some DC collectors dream... Like mine...Etrigan, Deadman, The Warlord, Doc Fate, Phantom Stranger, Spectre, etc, etc!

[neomatrix99]

I think part of the problem, what I can get from the small amount of info, is also that Marvel might want him to do Marvel Now characters instead of the list of classics he does now. Even is Modern is classic LOL

[SuperJ300]

This is taking so long, what left to negotiate??

Must be over?: (

[Khufu]

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say its a combination of things. The first probably being money - increased license fee vs. cost of operation. The second is probably creative differences - Marvel is probably pushing Marvel Now! costumes or wants to more directly dictate which characters are made. Reading into some of the things other companies have openly stated (i.e. XM), Marvel is putting the kibosh on Ironman statues. They are probably wanting too strict of guidelines in the contract than Randy is comfortable with (i.e. produce X amount of character A, etc....).

From what I understand, Randy likes doing the oddball and classic comic characters. That's probably not what Marvel wants right now and they are upping the licensing costs to force his hand. They don't want a Werewolf by Night statue at 300 units - they want Modern Capt America at 1500 units.

Pure speculation and guess work on my part, but its a sad time for Bowen collectors like myself. I'm shifting my collecting to SSC/XM as a result.