SDCC 2011 - Minimate Panel

A SDCC classic, the Minimates Panel is always something I look forward to, though it rarely offers anything unexpected. This year we have the omnipresent Chuck Terceira joined by Jason Wires, Digger Mesch and new DST Marketing guy Zach Oat. Some new faces, some old and all in all the first DST panel ever to feature a Powerpoint Presentation!

• Marvel-v-Capcom: Series 1 = Sep; Series 2 = Oct; Series 3 = Fall/Spring
• MvC Series 3 = Modok! Full Minimate inside of torso/head cover
• MAX = Series 3 will have Night Ops & Artic Ops
• Stop Motion Minimate MAX movie - riff on GI Joe, super team. Web Shorts on Minimates.com
• Vehicles Series 3 in Winter, Series 2 in September
• Vehicles 3 - KITT, Blue APC, Yellow ship; specialty = CARR, gray APC, Vane's pirate ship
• Halo - Series 4 based on Halo 1, cortana, hyabusa, & ..."elder chair guy" thing, among others
• 2 Halo: Reach boxsets with Warthog and 3 of main team. Working on Scorpion Tank.
• New packaging starts at TRU with series 42, series 41 for specialty
• Series 42 is Cap & Thor themed
• Next Carrying Case's exclusive Minimate is glow-in-the-dark.

And now... the Q&A

• Have done design work for BTTF3 Delorean, Chuck's response "...we've done a lot of DeLoreans..." Zach asked for hands on who would want a BTTF3 one and most were raised.
• Digger is developing Minimates for a movie he is producing. He is focusing on full-time film directing. Using Minimates and Kickstarter to raise 25k for post-production on a short film he filmed. 2 twin characters, run of a 1k, available on kickstarter for $25
• TRU's thinking is "one and done" of any of their exclusives. They have thought of bringing some things like Hulkbuster, not likely now
• Next short film will be Pirates
• Same old questions... "can you do a Galactus," "can you do marvel vehicles," siiiiigh
• You can tell Digger isn't too thrilled with how commercial Minimates have become
• Digger said his sales team didn't really "get" Minimates, and it wasn't until Chuck/DST brought in the Marvel license that it really got a foothold
• Jason says some of the figures can take up to 10 hours to paint, with all the tampos and decals
• Little kid asks "why didn't you put the GitD pirate with the GitD pirate ship?" Chuck: "Well... we want you to buy both"
• Have an active list of figures needed to complete teams, and will slide those in when slots become available.
• No chance whatsoever of C3 coming back. Digger was forced to go that way because of investors, because they were going to put into 2.5 million into developing that stuff. Digger: "C3 was a nightmare." Chuck said the tools have very little reuse because the actual product needs to be so precise.
• MAX isn't going to start character/story building - it's just generic guys
• Minimates.com relaunched this morning. Saturday 7/23
• Talked to MLB at Toyfair, but too many licenses to get
• What about Disney? Chuck hesitates... Have talked on and off with them. Possible in the future but no plans right now.

And now, thanks to Minimate Database, video of the presentation: