Paramount Pictures Set for Max Steel
Toys are the new comic books these days with Hasbro being the first and potentially the best at expanding their toy brands into big budget Hollywood films attracting A-list talent, Mattel is quickly learning from their competitor that Hollywood films on their brands attract new consumers and give them a way to have brand expansion and new merchandise revolving around that.
Paramount Pictures and Joe Roth are now partnering up to bring the Mattel action figure Max Steel to theaters. The toy follows a 19-year-old insane sports junkie who gets picked by a secret agency when his body is taken over by nanobots and he becomes superhuman.
“A theatrical film plays a significant role to relaunch the franchise,” stated Mattel’s Vice President of worldwide entertainment marketing and strategy, Barry Waldo. “But we have a strong Latin consumer we’re going to keep happy while broadening the franchise for the rest of the world. We wouldn’t do ourselves a favor if we turned a blind eye to it. That’s the artistic challenge we’ve got.”
Mattel brought out the character as an action figure in the U.S. in 1999, and it followed that with an animated series that played from 2000-2002. This character gained a lot of traction in Latin America, where Max Steel, in that region, is the No. 1 action figure. Mattel made multiple animated direct-to-DVD features for that market
Mattel hopes that movies can relaunch the toy line in the U.S. and elsewhere. Roth is serving as an executive producer on the project. Currently, Mattel and Roth are looking for a screenwriter and director. The plan is for them to work closely with Mattel to create characters and a storyline that match what the company hopes to do with the property.
Max Steel marks the first film that Mattel has put together at Paramount since it started looking to turn it’s toys into big screen vehicles. Hot Wheels was to be set up at Warner Brothers but with the lackluster performance of Speed Racer, The WB has been skeptical of another Mattel car franchise. Major Matt Mason, the classic Mattell astronaut action figure from the 70s is also getting a film adaptation with Tom Hanks said to be attached.
As I mentioned earlier Toys are the new comic books in Hollywood and both Hasbro and Mattel are realizing the profitability and brand expansion of toy film properties. Fisher-Price is even getting a film about the classic View-Master made into a feature film.
