dctoyrevolution.org

A Matty Collector Q&A excerpt as reported on Action Figure Insider:

Q5. I understand that the spreading of tooling costs for the tooling of Unleashed Doomsday can no longer come from the sub due to it not going through. And appreciate the $35 price for the containment suit Doomsday at SDCC next year (was worried it would be more).

BUT… you’ve stated that SDCC and convention exclusives are granted their own budget, so is there any chance that the Unleashed version can be made as an exclusive for either retail or conventions, as part of a 2pk with the long requested light blue suited Superman under a separate budget?
The Supes would be a straight repaint people have wanted for ages, (no new tooling there, just money for old rope). If you priced it at around $50 to $60 max it would sell. If you can sell the 66 Batmobile for $60 (and that is pretty much just a plastic shell), then you could easily sell this 2pk.

A5. The catch is that the budgets for newly developed SDCC items are often to support new/upcoming company programs and are designed and produced by the retail team (even though they may be sold on Mattycollector.com). As there are no longer enough customers to support a 6″ 4HM line, the retail team will most likely put their convention resources into developing product that supports upcoming retail initiatives and current toy lines. The opportunity to support more 6″ 4HM figures has come and gone with the sub. We can only make figures when we have customers buying them and the sub not going through was basically the last call for more 6″ 4HM skus.


Well, that's their answers...they're obviously not seeing that there's a lot of us still interested in the 4H DCUC figs. It's just that their subscription model isn't working and they can't see that.

In fairness to Mattel, the subscription was their final attempt to keep the Four Horsemen-style figures viable. After retail sales of DCUC dropped off, Mattel attempted to rebrand the line first as All-Stars, then as Unlimited, and none of them performed very well. Mattel tried one more option, the sub model, and it, too, did not last. No one, least of all Mattel, is disputing there are a number of very enthusiastic DCUC customers; it is just that their number is not large enough to carry a toy line. It was a great run, and Mattel trying three times to keep the line going in some form is a testament to the company's dedication to their customers (and to their customers' money).

SDCC exclusives do have a separate budget, but the size of that budget is entirely in relation to the profitability of the exclusive's related line. Thus, the struggling DCIE received a low-tooling exclusive in New 52 Shazam. If tier one Doomsday had not already been tooled, it would never be released, even as an exclusive. Conversely, if tier two Doomsday was tooled already, it would almost certainly see release as an exclusive at some point. No matter how much DCUC is missed, customers must understand Mattel will not approve new tooling resources allocated for a toy line with four ultimately failed incarnations.