More Licensing

The Secret Life of PetsI may have been a little quick on the posting last week

DreamWorks Animation signed Mattel as the master toy licensee for Dinotrux, a series coming to Netflix and featuring creatures that are half-dinosaur and half-construction vehicles.

For the How To Train Your Dragon franchise, DreamWorks Animation renewed its license with Spin Master, extending it to include the next movie in the series, How To Train Your Dragon 3 (scheduled for 2018).

Spin Master also signed on with Universal and Illumination Entertainment for The Secret Life of Pets, an animated comedy feature-film scheduled for summer 2016.

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Toothless by Spin MasterWe’re giving away two sets of 4 tickets to a pre-screening of How to Train Your Dragon 2! The tickets have been graciously provided by Spin Master, which is producing a wide range of toys for the movie, including my favorites, the Ionix construction sets. How to Train Your Dragon 2 opens next Friday, June 13th but you have a chance to see it Tuesday, June 10th!

To enter for a chance to win, just leave a comment below. You can say anything (nice) but a thank you to Spin Master would be particularly appropriate.

Now there are a few important restrictions. The pre-screening takes place in Owings Mills, Maryland (near Baltimore) at 7:00 PM Tuesday. Please only enter if you can make it there at that time. Also, given the short time-frame, the giveaway closes at 8:00 PM ET on Sunday (June 8th). I’ll select the winners randomly and notify them by email shortly thereafter. Each winner will then have until 10:00 AM ET on Monday to respond. If there’s no response at that time, I’ll select another winner. Don’t worry about receiving actual tickets, I just need to give the event organizers your names by Monday afternoon.

Good luck!

From Pressman Toy, just released are two How to Train Your Dragon 2 games…

There’s the Sheep Launcher Game, which has players catapulting sheep tokens while keeping score with dragon figures.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 Sheep Launcher Game

And a Pop N Race Game:

How To Train Your Dragon 2 Pop N Race Game

From Wonder Forge, there’s a Matching Game.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 Matching Game

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Toy-Fair-2014-logo-150wideAt Toy Fair, I had an opportunity to get a closer look at upcoming products in Spin Master’s lines of Ionix shapeshifting construction bricks. [Click on the thumbnails to see full images.]

For the second series of Tenkai Knights on TV, Spin Master is set to release a 2-in-1 set ($25) that converts from Flame Phoenix in to Fire Raptor jet and a 2-in-1 Tenkai Dragon set ($50) with disc-firing action bricks. An Elemental form of Bravenwolf will also make an appearance as a mini figure ($5) and titan ($12).

The Pokemon figures are just rough prototypes at this point, yet they give you an idea of what to expect in the fall.

Sets for DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon are scheduled to hit retail just before the second movie in June.

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IonixSpin Master has announced the expansion of its Ionix system of construction bricks with Pokemon and How to Train Your Dragon licenses. Ionix, still a relatively new line for the company, originally launched with the anime tie-in, Tenkai Knights.

Of course, Ionix bricks are Lego compatible. But more than simply compatible, the Ionix system’s specialty is bricks that unfold, or “shapeshift”, into different characters. With Spin Master’s experience in the engineering and development of Bakugan, it seems to me there is strong potential in Ionix licenses.

However, you don’t have to take my word for it. Though the How to Train Your Dragon products won’t be in retail until May or Pokemon until October, we have the first images (plus a sneak peek of some Tenkai Knights) for you below.

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