Outside of the vintage line, Classics is my favorite, but it always bugged me that Scott and Mattel seemed to have so little faith in MOTU at retail.  They seemed to think its only chance for success was in a "movie year".  Even if winding down, Origins and Masterverse proved successful at retail and have lasted longer than a lot of lines.  The cartoon and TMNT figures are spinoffs of the Origins figures as well.  

Posted by: @firefly

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Outside of the vintage line, Classics is my favorite, but it always bugged me that Scott and Mattel seemed to have so little faith in MOTU at retail.  They seemed to think its only chance for success was in a "movie year".  Even if winding down, Origins and Masterverse proved successful at retail and have lasted longer than a lot of lines.  The cartoon and TMNT figures are spinoffs of the Origins figures as well.  

I do not think it was Mattel that did not have faith in Classics, but retailers who were burned by the 2002 toyline.

@firefly To be fair, Classics came out on the heels of 200X, which didn't exactly light retail on fire. I'm sure that contributed a lot to the skittishness at the time.

It's difficult to sell a product at retail if the middle men won't bite. Motu was a franchise with a recent perceived failure, no current supporting media and little to suggest it would perform well if simply put back on shelves. The DC vs Motu Classics packs didn't set things on fire and it seems nor did the small number of Classics that somehow made it to retail. It's likely that any exploration with stock buyers yielded negative results. So it was natural to see a movie as the necessary breakthrough, at least with that generation of sales executives.

@timrollpickering DC movies consistently under preform and have poor word of mouth. Yet they still get a collector's line of toys. While MOTU had a Netflix show that hit the top ten during it's first week.

Posted by: @smitty-81

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@timrollpickering DC movies consistently under preform and have poor word of mouth. Yet they still get a collector's line of toys. While MOTU had a Netflix show that hit the top ten during it's first week.

Though when did that all begin? More recently than 2008 odd. The market is very different now from the early days of Classics when it was clear retail stock purchasers weren't going to bite.

@timrollpickering IDK I think with more adults buying toys for themselves there a better chance for MOTU to be successful at retail. I can't really use my local observations as a good metric. My local retailers got flooded with Origins wave 7 and the Sun-Man wave of Masterverse. They have been sitting on wave one of TMNT Mutant Mayhem, but they only get the vintage reissues periodically and they sell out quickly. 

Near as I can figure WWE is the best selling toy brand but I still see local stores get stuck on early year waves.