Toy Company Acquires The MICRONAUTS

[JeffSaylor]

J.J. Abrams in talks to produce Micronauts movie...

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that director/producer J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, LOST) is in talks to produce a movie about the Micronauts, the popular interchangable toys from the '70s. The rights to the project were recently acquired by Hasbro.

First released in Japan in 1974 under the name Microman, the toys were imported to the U.S. by the Mego Corporation in 1976. Mego cancelled the Micronauts line in 1980. In 2002, Palisades Toys bought the rights to reproduce Micronauts, though the comeback was short lived. The Micronauts also existed as a comic book series published by Marvel Comics, Image Comics, and Devil's Due Publishing. Their first comic appearance was in Micronauts #1 by Marvel in 1979.

Further news on this breaking development as we receive it.

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[Malevolus]

Damn. As excited as I was when I saw the word "Micronauts," so was I disappointed when I saw that JJ Abrams is involved. He may have the golden touch in Hollywood right now, but I find him so smarmy and pretentious beyond belief. Plus I don't really like his movies. As someone who cares about more than pretty faces, lens flares, and ridiculous stories featuring in-joke and incomprehensible plot devices I didn't particularly like new Trek. So there, says the angry guy writing on the internet!

[tekwych]

What I have so far:
There is a rumor in the Micro community that Mattel had been sniffing at the license with enough force that Hasbro felt in 'HAD' to take on the license so that Mattel would not get its on hooks into Takara and the roots of the Transformers line. The trademarks for Microman / Micronauts in North America have been in dispute for almost 2 decades (That is why the Palisades figure did not get the support they were promised and why the SOTA figures died as prototypes). Over the last 6 months EVERYTHING suddenly got resolved. Takara ceded the entire interest to AGE (Marty Abrams), who then ceded it to MIC holdings, a company that brokers intellectual properties, who then consolidated all the trademarks and some new areas to put all the eggs in one basket. They then completed the deal between Takara and Hasbro (possibly after talking to Mattel). The fact that Takara dropped all rights to the license suggests that the MIC consolidation was in the works from the beginning and talks were already under way with a 'major NA manufacture' The Marvel characters (Bug and Marionette) and the Marvel designs not based on actual Mego figures are NOT available.

For my own thoughts I actually want a new backstory or the original Japanese Microman backstory to be used for the new toys and film instead of the Marvel / Mego storyline that has been used / abused so many times already. The most resent Microman story suggests that the Acroyears came from Microman stock that was corrupted by pollution so there is an 'eco' angle that can be worked as well. The big requirements for the toys will be a peg and post interchangeability throughout the line, the 1:18th scale and VEHICLES (I would love to see the Micropolis building sets come back in as well but I won't push it just yet).

The best part of this whole story is that Micronauts is FINALLY retched from the evil claws of Marty Abrams.

[tekwych]

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