Action Figure World » Disney

PIXAR’S CARS DUPLO SET

actionfigurecanada — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:21:10 +0000

Though rarely considered to be an example of Pixar’s greatest work, CARS does seem to be its most enduring property in terms of merchandise and toys! Every month we get new items and pre-orders for a bunch of great collectibles based on the hit film and fans just keep snapping this stuff up! And when you take something as exciting as Cars and pair it with the equally popular building block toy, LEGO, then you can pretty much bet it’s going to be a success.

And after the success of so many of Cars’ LEGO items, they’ve moved to a similar building block aimed at the younger crowd: DUPLO!

Mack’s Road Trip DUPLO set is a 33-piece item featuring a couple vehicles and enough to build a little set-up ideal for display. It’s a great way to introduce the even younger set to a great Pixar adventure.

Tagged: Cars, Disney, Duplo, lego, Lightning, Mack, Mack's Road Trip, Pixar, playset

San Diego Comic Con 2010: PICTURES!

actionfigurecanada — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:36:16 +0000

Well, I’ve just gotten back from San Diego and I’m very pleased to say that it was an absolute blast, if a little lighter on actual comic content than I’m used to. Really, though, I suppose it’s just the way of things that TV and movies seem to have officially taken precedence over the comic book stuff and at least it’s bringing people into the show where they’ll discover the stuff they might have missed out on! Plus, with movies like Red and shows like The Walking Dead, it’s further proof that there’s a symbiotic relationship between the media forms and that is definitely a good thing.

But without further ado, I’ll get to the meat of this post, THE PICTURES! Take a look at some of the cool items, set pieces and costumes from the biggest con in the world!

And if you want a little more, be sure to check out our previous post on SDCC EXCLUSIVES!

Tagged: 2010, CCI, Comic Con International, cosplay, exclusives, pictures, report, San Diego Comic Con, SDCC

Sideshow’s New 20-inch Prince of Persia Statue: DASTAN

actionfigurecanada — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:44:55 +0000

Dastan, the Prince of Persia joins the Sideshow lineup as a brand new statue clad in a real fabric costume and bearing a brilliant likeness to actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who of course portrayed the hero in Disney’s 2010 adaptation of the hit video game. Here’s a look:

The statue itself stands a whopping 20 inches tall and wields the twin blades seen in the film. Naturally, the sculpting is top-notch, as anything else would never do for Sideshow, whose items seem to be getting better and better. Fans of the film are sure to love it. And they’re also sure to love this news:

In this piece from The Independent, we learn that The Prince of Persia Surpasses Tomb Raider as the Highest-grossing video game adaptationHopefully this’ll pave the way for a ton of great new movies based on some of the brilliantly-written games currently out there. Assassin’s Creed anyone? Here’s the full story:

With more than $295 million in worldwide earnings, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is now the biggest grossing film adaptation of a video game. The previous holder of the record was 2001′s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, which held the position at $275 million.

It has taken almost a decade to better the record of the first Lara Croft film starring Angelina Jolie. It took Jerry Bruckheimer’s production starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton to grab the top spot and much of its accomplishment is owing to the outstanding performance internationally.

Prince of Persia’s box office receipts only totaled $81 million in the US, compared to Lara Croft which made $131 million in the US. But Prince pulled in more than $213 million around the world where it was the No. 1 film in most countries.

This success should disprove the conventional wisdom that films based on video games are doomed. Some have theorized that this is because most video games lack a strong narrative.

Resident Evil will try again with another sequel, Afterlife, in September with Milla Jovovich and Mortal Kombat will return in 2013.

Of course, it’s just a great time to be into Prince of Persia over all, isn’t it? Because the new game is doing amazingly well and if you haven’t grabbed it, here are the Amazon links where you can get your hands on it for whichever console you like:

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for The XBox 360

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for the Playstation 3

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for the Wii

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for the PC

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for the Nintendo DS

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for the PSP

Tagged: 360, Dastan, Disney, Jake Gyllenhaal, movies, Nintendo DS, playstation 3, Prince of Persia, ps3, PSP, Sideshow, Statue, video games, wii, xbox

Disney Pixar Cars Color Changers Series

actionfigurecanada — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:21:23 +0000

Inspired by the hit Disney/Pixar film Cars, each vehicle in this assortment features a favorite character in 1:55 scale. Play out racing and chasing scenes, and for double the fun, dunk the vehicle in warm or icy cold water to make it change color.

* Turns from yellow to red and back again
* Lots of personality and cool details
* Collect them all — and keep the adventure rolling on!

Tagged: Cars, cars movie, cars movie die-cast, cars movie toys, disney's cars, Pixar Cars color changers

Three New Toys from Toy Story 3

actionfigurecanada — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:33:04 +0000

From The Vancouver Sun:

Toy Story 3 is a kind of valedictory, a farewell to Andy, the little boy in the first film in 1995, and now -15 years later -grown to adolescence. He’s going off to college, and he no longer needs Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang: They’re bound for the attic, although as things develop, they wind up in the rarefied hell of the Sunnyside Day Care centre, where they are thrown against walls, put into mouths and noses, stretched, covered with goo, disassembled and, in some cases, decapitated.

It’s an intense experience, and Toy Story 3 feels like a farewell itself.

The reviews are in. Critics call it everything from melancholy to uplifting, emotional to thrilling and everything in between but with few exceptions, they all call it another Pixar masterpiece. I haven’t gotten a chance to see it (which makes me feel all kinds of guilty–this weekend, I swear!), but I’m definitely looking forward to it.

Naturally, the merch has also hit the shelves and beyond the stuff we already have for the rest of the Toy Story figure and toy collection, here’s a look at three items specifically based on the third and final installment of the incredible franchise.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command is a fan favourite and one of the two stars alongside Woody the Cowboy. This figure is a straight-forward Buzz, standing 6-inches tall and featuring full movie-based articulation. Whether it comes to life when you’re around or not, we cannot say. (probably)

Woody’s partner in crime and girlfriend to Buzz, Jessie here comes with loyal steed Bullseye to complete the Woody’s Round-Up Trifecta. Missing is an unpleasant Prospector, last seen headed East in a box.

Stretch is a new character for the film, voiced by Whoopi Goldberg. She works for the villainous Lotso’ Huggin at the Sunnyside Daycare and provides a challenge for Andy’s toys as they try to escape.

Tagged: action figures, Buzz Lightyear, Disney, figures, Pixar, Review, Stretch, Toy Story 3, toys, Woody

Alice and the Mad Hatter Figures Arrive!

actionfigurecanada — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:40:24 +0000

Alice and the Mad Hatter are the first two figures from Disney and Tim Burton’s re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. They’re six inch figures and manufactured by Medicom Toys, which essentially means that you can expect extremely high detail and a pretty stunning paint job, too. Known for their talent for likenesses, Medicom seems the perfect studio to bring Tim Burton’s vision from 3-D vision to three more tangible dimensions. Heck, just look at the label right there: ULTRA DETAIL FIGURE. So enjoy. The movie itself was a massive success, though critics didn’t seem to agree with audiences: it may have had something to do with the fact that even the most casual Tim Burton fan would probably think Alice in Wonderland to be the ultimate playground for the director’s imagination, but the end result was almost too polished and CGI-laden. Not to mention the fact that some are beginning to tire of his use (overuse?) of wife Helena Bonham-Carter and best friend Johnny Depp. But again, despite complaints, the movie definitely raked in the bucks and I’ve no doubt that whatever Burton and/or Depp roll out next will be just as big.

And if you’re looking for the film, you can snag that, too, over at Amazon.com!
- Alice in Wonderland on DVD
- Alice in Wonderland on Blu-Ray

Tagged: 3D, Alice, Alice in Wonderland, CGI, Disney, Johnny Depp, Madd Hatter, movies, Tim Burton

New Disney/Pixar CARS Figures: Lenticular Eyes Series

actionfigurecanada — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:06:14 +0000

There’s a new series of toys from the folks at Disney and Pixar, bridging the gap between the hugely successful 2006 film and its upcoming sequel. Of all the Pixar films, it seems that Cars’ Hot Wheels style merchandising has been the most successful. From individual vehicles to playsets and race courses, these items fly off the shelves whenever we get a shipment.

The latest collection is the Cars “Lenticular Eyes” series, featuring eyes that look around and give the figure even more life than the clever, film-loyal designs generally allow.

The characters available in this group include several variations of Lightning McQueen, Hudson Hornet, Lightning Ramon, Sarge, Fillmore, The King, DJ (Chase), Leak Less and more!

They join the growing collection of Disney/Pixar Cars figures we’ve got over at CmdStore. If you’re a fan of the film, be sure to check ‘em out!

Meanwhile, in other Cars news, a blind item recently appeared at The Orlando Sentinel which an interesting question.

Just got off the phone with a delightful British character actress who was “running late. I was just doing ADR (voice over) work for Cars 2.”

She’s in a couple of films now making the rounds. And we don’t know exactly what vehicle she’ll play in Pixar’s Cars sequel.

But she strikes me as a Mini Cooper sort of girl. Not Aston Martin or Jaguar or Land Rover.

Anybody care to hazard a guess?

Tagged: blind items, Cars, Cars Toys, CGI, Disney, Lenticular Eyes, Lightning McQueen, movies, Pixar

Army Men on Patrol: Toy Story 3 Lego Set #7595

actionfigurecanada — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:38:29 +0000

If you’re anything like me, the wait for Toy Story 3 has you as excited as it does apprehensive: can anything really live up to the first two? Can Pixar continue its unbroken winning streak? Is Cars 2 really coming out when Incredibles 2 has yet to be written? So many questions!

We can’t exactly answer them with LEGO, but we can at least temporarily distract ourselves by playing with the latest addition to the Toy Story LEGO collection: Army Men on Patrol!

It comes with: 4 Lego-fied Army Men minifigures, a jeep (with spare tire) and a stretcher for any injured soldiers. Taking a look at the reviews, they are overwhelmingly positive and who can blame Lego fans for loving these? The army men and their Jeep are exactly the kinds of things that translate to this format perfectly.

Tagged: Army Men, Disney, lego, Pixar, Toy Story, Toy Story 3

Disney and Pixar Unveil a New Virtual World

actionfigurecanada — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:00:51 +0000

With a sequel on its way, it’s no surprise that there’s more Cars figures and toys being rolled out. We just got a group of items in that you can check out in our Cars section over at CmdStore.com. The new figures include die-cast 3-packs and a bunch of Mega-sized vehicles like Lightning McQueen, Chick Hicks, Kathy Copter, T.J. and a bunch more. Be sure to take a look if you’re a fan of the film, but read below the jump for even more good news for Cars lovers.

If you’re a Club Penguin fan on top of enjoying the Disney-Pixar brilliance that was Cars, then there’s good news ahead because the two are about to collide!

The LA Times has the full story! Or you can check out the World of Cars by clicking here!
Walt Disney Co. believes that World of Cars, its new subscription-based online community aimed at boys and based on the Pixar movie “Cars,” won’t get lost in the traffic of virtual worlds.

Things are already a bit congested. Some 200 virtual worlds target children under 12. Each competes for a slice of the 10 hours and 45 minutes a day the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that kids spend viewing media, simultaneously vying for screen time against a growing number of portable media players and smart phones that offer their own diversions.

That’s not deterring Disney, however, which is testing World of Cars for rollout this summer. The game will allow kids to create their own car persona and rub hubcaps with characters from the movie, such as Mater, the bucktoothed tow truck, or play online games such as tractor-tipping.

The launch marks the latest exercise in corporate cross-branding for Disney, which hopes it can leverage the movie’s popularity into monthly subscription payments from boys and their NASCAR dads in advance of the release of “Cars 2″ in summer 2011 and the Cars Land attraction that opens in 2012 at Disney’s California Adventure theme park.[...]

World of Cars is modeled after Club Penguin, the online game of scarf-wearing penguins and igloos aimed at the juice-box crowd that Disney acquired in 2007. The site had 12 million active players and 700,000 subscribers when Disney bought it, although over the last year U.S. visitors to Club Penguin have leveled off, according to research firm ComScore Media Metrix.

Its global reach is broader, with Club Penguin attracting visitors from 190 countries as the site has been translated into Portuguese, Spanish and French. Kzero Worldwide, a British consulting firm, estimates that Club Penguin reaches as many as 35 million users globally, ranking it among the top five virtual worlds for children.

[...] The trick, however, isn’t inventing a virtual world, but designing content that keeps children clicking back.

“Kids have notoriously short attention spans,” said Steve Prentice at Gartner, a technology information and consulting firm. “They are intrigued by novelty, but unless there’s an enduring reason for them to come back, they won’t.”

That’s the challenge for Lane Merrifield, co-founder of Club Penguin, who oversees Disney’s virtual worlds.

Pixie Hollow, the virtual world in which players flutter around with Tinker Belland other characters, has grown since its 2008 debut to 1.6 million monthly users in December, up from 1.3 million a year earlier. Toontown Online, one of the first virtual worlds, saw usage spike in the summer — but the number of visitors in December fell below year-earlier levels, according to ComScore.

Meanwhile, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, the multi-player computer game that was launched in 2007, is taking on water. The number of online visitors fell below 192,000 in December from 500, 000 a year earlier, ComScore estimates.

“It’s no secret it had some technical issues. There were some hurdles there,” said Merrifield, who has been working to retool the game. “There were big downloads, and a lot of machines couldn’t carry it.”

Merrifield worked with the development team in North Hollywood to apply some of what he learned with Club Penguin. Players needed to be able to dive quickly into Pirates and play the game as soon as they launched their browser, he said, instead of waiting for a time-consuming download.

More fundamentally, Merrifield encouraged the Pirates team to depart from the game’s linear storytelling to adopt Club Penguin’s open-ended approach, in which the players have more say in the narrative and provide direction on the types of weapons, battles or quests they experience online.[...]

Allowing players to determine the action on screen, Merrifield said, provides “a limitless supply of new content” and allows kids to become the storytellers. He credits 8-year-olds with some of Club Penguin’s most popular ideas — like the addition of ninjas.

Merrifield is applying the same approach to World of Cars. Players start by designing their own car, picking from among body types (stock car, say, or sleek, aerodynamic Porsche), colors and race-car numbers. As they roll down the main drag of Radiator Springs, they can choose to interact with characters from the movie, or head to Fillmore Fields to race through a hay bale maze with friends playing online.

“My goal is to make sure that Disney, from a virtual world standpoint, has the same tradition that Pixar does in 3-D computer animation,” Merrifield said

Tagged: Cars, Club Penguin, Disney, MMO, MMORPG, Pixar, video games, World of Cars

Toy Story Lego and New Toy Story 3 Characters

actionfigurecanada — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:28:37 +0000

A few items from the new Toy Story Lego collection has arrived over at cmdstore.com! Any fans of either the film franchise or the world-famous building blocks can now find Buzz’ Star Command Ship and the Construct-a-Buzz set, the first of the collection to ship. Others available for pre-order and shipping in the coming months include Woody and Buzz to the Rescue, Woody’s Round-Up, Army Men on Patrol and more!

Of course, the reason for the sudden influx of Toy Story items is the upcoming Toy Story 3, the final chapter of Disney-Pixar’s franchise (or so we imagine until they announce a fourth installment). In the film, the toys are given away to a daycare, where they must contend with a group of toddlers and join on with a slew of new toys in order to escape.

Images of those new characters are slowly being released by the folks at Pixar. We’ve seen a good amount already, from Ken to Peas in a Pod, but here’s a look at the latest: an octopus by the name of Stretch. Take a look!

Den of Geek reports:

You pretty much know the drill with these by now, we suspect. Disney is drip-feeding through, one-by-one, the new additions to the cast of the Toy Story franchise. The latest addition to the cast is Stretch, who bears a little bit of a similarity to B.O.B. from Monsters Vs Aliens, from where we’re sitting.

There are still quite a few more characters to be revealed in advance of the film’s 18th June debut in the US (we get it the month after in the UK), but the finest bit of promotional imagery we’ve seen thus far – discounting the trailer – is still this poster from last week.

We’ll bring you news on more characters as we get it.

Tagged: Buzz Lightyear, Disney, lego, movies, Pixar, Stretch, Toy Story 3, Woody