Walt isn't the issue in that particular case. Mickey et all are not copyrighted to a specific person, but the the Disney corporation, and that particular brand of copyright lasts for 90 years from publication date. It used to be less, but everytime the threshold approaches, Disney throws a bag of money at legislators and has the term extended for another 20 years.
Tripod kits do exist, although not by mainstream manufacturers. A quick Google search turned up Comet Miniatures, Reviresco, Black Hat and Ground Zero Games (Future Wars line, can't find it in their current catalog however).
I once started scratch-building a tripod, based on a nice article in Fine Scale Modeler from 10-15 years ago, but I only built the body.
The quality of the movie has little to do with licensing as those deals are usually done over a year before the movie is released, in fact sometimes before it is in production.
Basically when movies are presented to potential licensee for merchandising (usually at Licensing Show in New York in mid-June every year) the studio tries to convince companies there is enough mass appeal for them to invest in tooling (and usually high guarantees). In this case, with a few "vehicles" and no notable characters, and a violent plot, there were few takers.
Also, in general, when a studio gets the rights to make movie they get the merchandising rights as well. I said in general as that is always not the case. The most famous of which is George Lucas who retained all the rights to Star Ware merchandising whereas 20th century fox gets nothing. (I bet they renegotiated those rights for the later movies, but no way to prove that).
Anyway, that is licens> I'm very surprised that no one seems to be doing a kit at least based on the
There's a question, after all these acquisitions and mergers, how many big model companies (and big toy companies) are there? Maybe they all already had everything tied up in Star Wars, Batman, and Fantastic 4.
Before beginning the prequels, there were news stories that he didn't even have to distribute them through Fox (I'm unsure why). Certainly sounded like Lucas held all the cards.
There are a lot more toy companies big enough to make a toy based on a big movie than there are model companies that can.
I would guess for model companies there would be Revell-Monogram and RC2 (i.e. Racing Champions/AMT/Ertl and Polar Lights now via Playing Mantis purchase). Not sure how big Lindbergh is anymore. I think Testors does not really due movie/tv licensing.
Because Speilburg is incapable of producing consistent quality work...his films reek of inconsistency. He takes classic ideas not his own which get folks in to the theater and then "high schools" those ideas. I don't fault his choice of subjects but he can only take them so far and then loses concentration or interest.
War of the the Worlds? Ok I haven't seen it yet. Tom Cruise and Speilburg just don't get me into a theater. Think I will wait for the rental.
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