Factory Entertainment Masters Time Travel!

Factory Entertainment, a leading producer of high-end licensed entertainment collectibles, today announced the launch of its highly-anticipated first prop replica entry from the Back To The Future film series, the iconic Flux Capacitor.

As seen in and prominently featured in Doc Brown’s DeLorean Time Machine, the Flux Capacitor is “what makes time travel possible.” The replica, briefly previewed last month at San Diego Comic-Con, can now be ordered from Factory Entertainment’s website or through select retailers.  

Geeks Go Shopping! The Geekiest Hallmark Selections

Back into your geekiest of holiday shopping suggestions, this time with Hallmark! One of the most fun things to do every year is to hit a Hallmark store when the yearly ornament display is up and press all the buttons. Button pressing is a very acceptable date option, just FYI. The best ornament I ever clicked was Beaker from The Muppets who sang in his Beaker voice and moved his tiny bottom lip. Amazing. This year's offerings covered a wide spectrum of our movies, TV, cartoons and comic books. Among the hefty catalog of products, Hallmark picked three they thought you'd love...

Insight Announces Back to the Future DeLorean: Doc Brown's Owner's Manual

One of the most iconic movie sagas of all time, the Back to the Future trilogy has left an indelible impact on popular culture. Back to the Future: DeLorean Time Machine: Doc Brown’s Owners’ Workshop Manual [Insight Editions; March 30, 2021] delves into the secrets of the unique vehicle that transported Marty McFly and Doc Brown through time, including both the original version of the car and the updated flying model. Together, Gale and Walser have given us an unprecedented insight into the DeLorean’s inner workings, from its unmistakable gull-wing doors to Doc’s cutting-edge modifications, including the Flux Capacitor and Mr. Fusion. The book also includes unique handwritten excerpts from Doc Brown's journals, which recount his life after World War II, how he came to build the Time Machine, his first trip to 2015, how he survived his accidental trip to 1885 and much, much more. Filled with exclusive illustrations and never-before-disclosed information, Back to the Future: Doc Brown’s DeLorean: Owners’ Workshop Manual is the perfect gift for the franchise’s legion of fans.

The Frame Up: Playmobil's Back to the Future Toy Sets

Toy collectors, especially those of us who remember the 80's-90's, are in the midst of an embarrassment of riches. Not only can we celebrate monthly drops of fantastically crafted action figures of our most iconic modern heroes, but every company out there seems chomping at the bit to perfect our childhood toy hordes and sell it all back to us. Playmobil was long known as a child-safe toy line allowing play in medieval castles, farmsteads, aquariums and the like. In the last few years, they've introduced licensed properties, most of which designed to set off your flashback spidey-senses. It's a rare moment when a company can take on a movie property and make toys that are accurate, well designed, kid-friendly and ridiculously fun. Count Playmobil's Back to the Future line among them!

Toy Fair 2020: UK Toy Fair’s Hero Toys List Announced

The British Toy and Hobby Association today announced the Toy Fair’s Hero Toys for 2020, with Character Options, LEGO, and Spin Master amongst the winners. The Toy Fair’s Hero Toys list consists of 25 products launched at Toy Fair, which opened today at Olympia, London. They have been judged by an independent panel of retailers, and the BTHA itself, to be the most exciting and creative toys unveiled at the event.

All are due to be released over the next 12 months and between them they cover a wide variety of price points, age ranges and play patterns. From gooey superheroes to a flossing sloth, the list covers everything from major licenses to eco-friendly plush toys.

Funko + Playmobil = Your New Addiction

Last year's Toy Fair news stirred up the single most surprising collaboration we've seen in a pretty long time. Playmobil, known far and wide for their amazingly intricate, yet adorably simplistic children's toy sets team with pop culture universe builders Funko for a new line of 6 inch Playmobil style figures that will be hard to resist, especially if you're a die hard fan of any of the properties they are launching with.

The line kicks off this February with Ghostbusters, Willy Wonka, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Doctor Who and Back to the Future. That last property may be the death of me. I'm not a massive fan of the movies, but there is some love, and there's something about the characters in that style that makes my inner, uncontrollable geek go berserk. I have a mighty need...

Doctor Who, Portal 2, Simpsons & More Coming to Lego Dimensions

By Ryan Acheson

It seems like only yesterday we introduced LEGO Dimensions! It’s essentially the LEGO Company and Warner Brothers Interactive’s take on the whole Skylanders / Disney Infinity game and toy concept, coming to all the major consoles late this Summer. One of the things that seems to set Lego Dimensions apart is that instead of using what amounts to little plastic statues, it uses actual Lego minifigures and mini builds that you can take off their stands and take apart and rebuild any way you want. Even though that won’t affect how the characters and vehicles and items show up in game, in my eyes that adds a bit more value to the shelf loads of ‘stuff’ this game is going to be cluttering up your toy and video game stores with in the near future.

Pop Culture Worlds Collide in LEGO DIMENSIONS

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games and The LEGO Group today announced LEGO® Dimensions, an all-new entertainment experience that breaks the rules of traditional gaming to merge physical LEGO brick building with interactive console gameplay in a manner only imaginable in the world of LEGO games.  Launching September 27, 2015, the game will fuse many fan-favorite universes together, including DC Comics, The Lord of the Rings, The LEGO Movie, The Wizard of Oz, LEGO Ninjago, Back to the Future, and many more still to be announced.

Hot Toys Back to the Future 1/6th scale Marty McFly Collectible Figure

“This is heavy doc.”Back to the Future is a pop culture icon and one of the best time-travel films of all time! It remains to be a highly popular movie even decades after the film is first released! Next year marks the 30th anniversary of this classic film and today Hot Toys is very excited to present the 1/6th scale Collectible Figure of the film’s main character – Marty McFly!

The movie-accurate Marty McFly Collectible Figure is specially crafted based on the image of Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly in the movie, featuring the newly developed head sculpt, highly detailed costume and a number of accessories.

LEGO Going Back to the Future!

So how many of you knew you could bang out the LEGO kit of your dreams, push it to their main office and then rally fans to vote for it?? Does this get your mind humming? No? Didn't think so..for we are geek..hear us... open a bag of cool ranch Doritos. Luckily, there are more adventurous among us who will dream the big dreams and allow us to cheer for their efforts. Speaking of which...Portal LEGOs, anyone??!!

And for those of you longing for Minecraft LEGOs... CLICK HERE!

SDCC: Drive 88 mph with Team Fox

Where are all the real DeLorean Time Machines that were used in the Back to the Future movies? Sadly, some of them no longer exist and others are in need of extensive work. Of the seven cars used over the three movies, only three original cars are thought to still exist. Presented by Profiles in History, the famed auction house that represented the Debbie Reynolds Collection this summer, one of those screen used DeLoreans will be at Comic-Con 2011 for public viewing in conjunction with Team Fox benefiting The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. The main goal is to give fans the opportunity to see and be photographed in the car. For a $20 donation to the Foundation you can be photographed in the DeLorean with all proceeds going to Team Fox.

Profiles in History is proud to present the original DeLorean Time Machine driven by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future III. It will be presented at booth 1605, along with several original artifacts from all three Back to the Future movies with the hopes of creating a Back To The Future "museum" experience. Along with the Time Machine will be original costumes, the Tales From Space comic, Doc's burned toy Cadillac, Clock Tower cables, Gray's Almanac, the Doc Brown committed/commended newspapers, a full set of all five types of hoverbo, and other rarely seen pieces of cinematic history.

The Time Machine has been in private hands for the past 8 years, and was recently featured on the Hollywood Treasure television show hosted by Joe Maddalena. Joe and his staff will be at the booth in person to greet fans, and share these rare pieces of history. In conjunction with Team Fox, this is a rare opportunity to get your pictures taken with the original Time Machine.

The Time Machine will be available for viewing during advertised Comic-Con show hours, and will be in a future Profiles in History auction later this year, with a portion of the proceeds going to Team Fox benefiting The Michael J. Fox Foundation. Previously it could be seen at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Mattel: Ask Matty Answers for January

Note on how we cherry picked all these news bits:: We realize most of our readers are not HARDCORE, so we've omitted any bits that go into detail about accessories, paint, and anything else that is super specific. We've also omitted the inevitable non-answers. If you'd like to read the whole 5 point Q&A on any site, just click on their name and jump right in.

Action Figure Insider : Young Justice characters are not off limits to the Justice league unlimited line, even though the new figures are in scale with JLU (they just aren’t the same style.)

Mattel wants to focus on finishing off all the on-screen members of the team first before they move into the rest of the DC Universe. Getting nitpicky, Matty also mentions the blades on Azriel in DCUC wave 16 are not removable but do rotate and are correct on the final figure.

New DCUC 2 packs will be coming to Toys R Us in late 2011. One will include a Black Tuxedo Joker figure packed with a Harley Quinn re-release, now with a whiter face. Why it was blue to begin with, I’ll never even begin to fathom.

PoeGhostal.com: Dodging the questions about articulation and accessories, we’ll get right to the meat! Mattel says they’ve got big plans for more Dark Knight collector figures, alluding to the corresponding Green Lantern Classics line being released to run off the momentum from the upcoming film. Generally I’d be all for this, but anyone already collecting DC Universe Classic will tell you there are already a ton of Bat heroes and villains in the ranks. An entire line for the Bat is very unnecessary. What is more likely is that we’ll get more Movie Masterpiece type figures.

Pendragon’s Post : We’ve got hardcore answers to hardcore questions on this site, so we’ll jump to the couple of little news bits. The first being that the 200X look from the 4Horsemen we loved so much will not resurface in the collector club line…ever ever. The second bit involves the question of all these new school DCU characters in a line called DCU CLASSICS. Matty pretty much answers that the world is at their fingertips and they’d always intended to mix the new in with the old. Speaking of old, they say there will be "at least" two Golden Age characters in Wave 19!

Kastor’s Korner : NOW we get some juicy info..or at least confirmation of no info coming. Matty states that it is way too early for us to see anything from their Voltron and Back to the Future lines at Toy Fair this February, so cross those properties on your watch list for now.
Pop Culture Network

This bit is pretty specific to Masters of the Universe collectors, but I thought you might find it interesting none the less. Apparently there was a new system employed to combine the two halves of the Power Sword included in the re-issue King Grayskull. Mattel is open to the possibility of including the improved swords in a future weapons pack or figure variant. They also mention that while the character Mosquitor may be a possibility in the MOTUC line, they won’t be employing the “pump his blood” feature.

Figures.com : Mattel is looking into ways to improve the articulation in their Masters of the Universe Classics line, as evidenced in the new Victor figure (coming in this week!) On the topic of more giants, like the ones in Buzz-Off’s pride, they say it’s a possibility. They also mention that the character Jitsu is still a ways off.

In Ghostbusters news, Mattel mentions that poor sales on the Ghostbusters 6 inch line would prevent them from delving into an animated style as well. They site tooling and development as the major expense to such characters. Does that mean my new subscription to their Ghostbusters figure club will be filled with reused bodies and heads? I certainly hope not!

SuperHeroTimes.com : Mattel kicks things off answering to another comment calling for MORE Batman. (the mind boggles.) Mattel states the obvious..that Batman is their best selling character and he will see an update in the future. They also answer the call for a long awaited Doomsday collect and connect figure and while they agree it is about time, there are no plans currently. That doesn’t mean they may not announce something at Toy Fair. They also gave some info on the upcoming Green Lantern movie lines, saying the 6 inch line will be in the Movie Masters vein while the figures for the kiddies will be 3 and ¾ scale.

Universal Unleashes New Licensees for Back to the Future, Scarface & More

When a major company like Universal doles out licenses to manufacturers, they often do it in one big clump. One such clump has just surfaced, so we thought we'd bring you the highlights VIA licensemag.com ...

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Mattel will be making action figures, vehicles and accessories across the planet while Tell Tale Games will shell out interactive games.

PSYCHO: Robies costumes will have Halloween costumes and accessories in the US and Canada. Fingers crossed for a knife that does the stabby shower sound!!

SCARFACE: NECA has the license for Action Figures and accessories across the globe and Denim Street will have new apparel in the UK

SMOKEY & THE BANDIT: Franklin Mint will have diecast vehicles across the US

JAWS: A company called M.A.C will have new apparel in Australia and New Zealand

SHAUN OF THE DEAD: Pyramid Poster will have postcards and posters in the UK and Eire while Aquarius Entertainment dishes out stationary in the same regions

Since Mattel knows full well that Back to the Future is a specialty item, expect them to follow a similar model to their Ghostbusters line (ie; their MattyCollector club selling figures and Mego-esque dolls), with a chance of vehicles at mass retail since Diamond cleared the way for that to happen.

Diamond Select's New Movie Toys

Minimates (those little block figures) continue to roll out from Diamond Select. Today, we'll take a quick look at some movie related items that work with the killer Minimates you may already own, or may want to own after you see the sweet rides on the way!

First up, we've got the classic Back to the Future DeLorian!! Your little McFly figure has been without wheels for some time, so Diamond Select went to their workshop and didn't rest until this injustice was cleared. A mainstream time machine will hit world wide in August, but Toys R Us gets this exclusive car with Marty in his classic look.





Now your little itty bitty terminators have a playmate to help hunt down those nasty bugs called humans! The Hunter Killer Tank is also a Toys R Us exclusive, packed with a little Endoskeleton that you can pop into a compartment to ride along for all your genocidal fun.

Our last two pieces are a bit of a mystery. Diamond Select knew releasing a rotocast bank of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters was a no brainer. When the public realized that at 12 inches tall, he'd look awesome menacing your tiny Minimate Ghostbusters, it became genius and quickly sold out everywhere. Now DS brings the big fluffy guy back in two glow in the dark colors. The Blue edition is rumored to be a New York Comic Con exclusive. How the red "angry" version (his look before exploding all over the boys in grey) will be released is unknown at this time.

Keep watching Idle Hands for updates!