[UK] New sets available at Asda
Posted by Huw,
UK retailer Asda has listed a number of forthcoming releases for sale, including the brick built Minions, D-0 and the Star Wars helmets, which can be ordered for home delivery.
It is also selling a set related to a forthcoming DC film that we have been asked to remove all details and images of under threat of legal action. the Wonder Woman vs. Cheetah set.
Update: The folly of trying to suppress information about a set that's already being sold in stores has been realised by all concerned, so we are free to publish again!
Thanks to BricksFanz for the tip-off.
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46 comments on this article
Anyone know if sets are packaged safely. Don’t want a bashed up box on my door step. Or best just to wait a little bit and get directly from Lego
legal action! Just for a leaked image of a set?
Is that the OoS one set in the 80s that most people here have already seen images of?
Legal action... they do know your site is all about Lego, don’t they..LOL surely a polite “please remove it” would suffice?
Legal action for free advertisement? Are they serious?
Out of stock allegedly
Looking forward to the review. :-)
It’s a WONDER that Lego asked people to take that image down when it’s in stores in the US already. I’d hate to be the man or WOMAN that gets that takedown notice. What is this? 1984?!
£35 seems a fair price for that set.
You could always do a review of a certain Narcos and Mandalorian actor like Ashnflash did, to drive home the point that he doesn’t use a single new piece or print.
@meesajarjar72 said:
"Legal action... they do know your site is all about Lego, don’t they..LOL surely a polite “please remove it” would suffice?"
Yes, we had the polite request, so we obeyed. Had we not, legal action would have been forthcoming, we were told.
^ LEGO is massively over-reacting not least because the set’s designer has posted about an aspect of the set right here at Brickset!
LOL, legal action over that. A quick Google will get you all the images you need. Hey Huw, are you gonna put the accidental reveal article back once the set is officially revealed? It'd be a shame to simply have all those comments wiped for good.
Mmm, so this is where all the Lego stock that was reserved for local, independent toy shops have ended up
The takedown notice seemed strange to me as it was revealed by a retailer and not a traditional leak, but apparently Warner Bros. has always been cracking down on WW84 merchandise. On Eurobricks I was reminded of how they threatened legal action over mugs and other products found in stores showing Cheetah’s design. In this case, I don’t think it’s LEGO’s choice to take down the set images.
Dang it the Wonder woman sets already out of stock :(, so is the Minions Lair but the busts are available.
It is absurd to have to remove what is essentially free advertisement for LEGO, DC and WB. Although I wasn't asked, I took down my own vid about it - just in case, better safe than sorry, and all that. But frankly, if the big boys (cough) Amazon (cough), mess up, why attack the little fish who are keen for any info that comes their way? How can it possible improve their image?
@dylan_odds:
It's a movie tie-in for a movie that has now been delayed. It was originally scheduled for last December, then moved up to November, pushed back to June, and finally rescheduled for August because they really want it to have a traditional release. As a result, WB is probably in a mad scramble to get all WW84 product that's in the pipeline recalled and held back for another two months. The irony is that the very article Huw had to take down had a comment from someone who claimed to have bought a copy, and made claims about the set that were backed up by someone claiming to be the set designer. At that point, if someone was able to just walk into a regular store and buy a copy without any warnings about violating street date popping up, if they post images of the set they purchased, about the only thing WB can do to force them to take it down is to basically threaten to bully them with lawyers in a fight they can't afford to fight.
The LEGO Company is just a side player in this mess. They have a lot of freedom when it comes to the regular DC sets (other than the fact that all minifig designs have to be approved by WB/DC), but with movie tie-ins they are subject to the same rules imposed on all other merchandising partners. Primarily this means they are given a street date for when product is allowed to go on sale, but the other major restriction is that we often see sets like this officially announced through big media outlets like Entertainment Weekly because some sort of deal has been worked out with the studio to give them exclusive access. After that announcement has been made, then other sites are allowed to piggyback on that, but if there's a paid contract involved then WB has to do whatever's in their power to make sure that announcement stays exclusive.
The silver lining to all of this is that I went to the site that Huw mentioned, and came across a LEGO Christmas Duvet. Now... how to convince the wife that we need that? This one is going to be a serious challenge.
Sets to order and on sale before their official release and official availability. And threat of legal action when pics and even sets are already available here and there. And no threats for the UK retailer then? Some things I don't understand there. Guess I am not aware enough about how those things are working.
@Brick_t_:
Generally, there are financial penalties for breaking street date. I was once told that if a retailer got caught selling DVDs before their official release date (excluding preorders that would only be filled on that date or later), they were fined $1000 per copy. So there's really not much incentive in rushing to be the first to sell it. The trick is, there are hard street dates and soft street dates. All LEGO sets have street dates, but the vast majority of them aren't enforced (soft). TLC can't afford to cut off sales to Walmart, so they're going to turn a blind eye whenever Walmart inevitably slips some January releases onto the shelves before Christmas (in fact, they've even started to greenlight early releases on a limited range of sets when available stock of released sets takes a pounding). LEGO Stores and LEGO.com don't get that leniency. For them, a street date is inviolable unless they get clearance from corporate.
Hard street dates come with real penalties. DVDs almost always release on Tuesdays, and nobody breaks street date on those. We saw a hard street date with the release of the first Clone Wars sets, where Lucasfilm had a bunch of stuff timed to hit on the same day (TRU even had a countdown clock going for a long time). We've also heard of people trying to buy sets that got shelved early, only to have a message pop up on the register notifying the cashier that it can't be sold at that time.
This one gets messy, because WW84 was due to release in June, and street dates would have been set accordingly. When they pushed it back to August, they probably padded the street date by the same delay, but may not have effectively communicated it to everyone in time to prevent early sales from happening. One person claimed to have bought a copy at Target, which means that Target may potentially get fined by WB for selling it before the revised street date. I see a mention of Amazon here, so they could also be in trouble. Any websites that allowed someone to place an order but cancelled it without shipping would be fine, because they can show that the product never left their control.
PurpleDave, thank you for your complete explanation. I can understand better now, I'm now 47 but still a bit naive I guess about higher financial and marketing interests.
Glad I managed to put in an order for that "mystery" DC set before it went out of stock.
@Huw said:
Yes, we had the polite request, so we obeyed. Had we not, legal action would have been forthcoming, we were told."
Well, in my book "polite request" and mention of legal action are mutually exclusive and entirely unnecessary in this case. I'm quite certain you would comply with the request without any mention of poisoned dagger under the hood.
@Brick_t_:
No problem. It really is a lot messier than people think. This is never more evident than when sets for a blockbuster movie are announced via some entertainment media site instead of being sent to AFOL sites as usual. You see lots of comments asking why a LEGO set would be announced by a non-LEGO website. Sure, if they gave Gizmodo an exclusive announcement, that might be a fair question, but movies often involve a big PR contract. The media company may pay for exclusive access to press releases as a way to boost sales and subscriptions of their publications, while the studio may sell them that access as a way to help offset the production/marketing costs of their movie and ensure it becomes profitable. So, my prediction is that the WW84 set will not see a general press release like the Ideas Pirates set, but instead will be announced via a big media company that covers a lot of Hollywood news.
...hold on a gosh darned minute!!! I can get the Star Wars helmets a full week before my Lego shop @home super duper special pre-orders?? and from Asda of all places. WTF Lego!!!
@dylan_odds said:
"legal action! Just for a leaked image of a set?"
I think they gave away the bad guy for the movie. I may be wrong but I don’t think the studio had released any info on cheetah yet. They were probably pretty pissed about that.
not showing on there now - not even as 'out of stock' like it was earlier
@jaredhinton said:
" @dylan_odds said:
"legal action! Just for a leaked image of a set?"
I think they gave away the bad guy for the movie. "
Well, we know something we didn’t know before: President Business’s full name. It’s President Lego Business. That’s the bad guy.
@DarthWalle said:
"The silver lining to all of this is that I went to the site that Huw mentioned, and came across a LEGO Christmas Duvet. Now... how to convince the wife that we need that? This one is going to be a serious challenge. "
It is a single duvet... so she might well agree, but it'll be the spare room for you...
So... that's what happens when King Midas touches a sticker sheet. Interesting... and tedious.
I like how that gold array looks, surely stickers.. but still, looks pretty cool. Cool enough that I wont mind doing a few dozens.
Also, what is that grey part (there are 4 of them at the center of the antenna) that looks like a Halo Assault Rifle?
@Kokan said:
"I like how that gold array looks, surely stickers.. but still, looks pretty cool. Cool enough that I wont mind doing a few dozens.
Also, what is that grey part (there are 4 of them at the center of the antenna) that looks like a Halo Assault Rifle?"
Its the Robot guns from the first LEGO Movie, it was also used in the tranquilizer guns for the ACU in Jurassic World.
Here's the part: https://brickset.com/parts/6191976
@jaredhinton:
Deadline reported that Kristin Wiig was in talks to be cast as Cheetah on February 28th. That was in 2018, BTW. By last October, we knew that Pablo Pascal would be playing Maxwell Lord, It's a little late to be worried about spoiling that info, though this may be the first time we've seen what she looks like.
@Zander:
If you want to blame anyone, blame WB. For a blockbuster movie like this, they control access to the media, and they almost certainly signed a deal to give exclusive access to some Hollywood media group.
@LegoSolo77:
It got deleted in the purge, but we had at least two confirmations (set designer and someone who bought a copy already) that the street signs are printed rather than stickered.
@Inflex said:
" @Huw said:
Yes, we had the polite request, so we obeyed. Had we not, legal action would have been forthcoming, we were told."
Well, in my book "polite request" and mention of legal action are mutually exclusive and entirely unnecessary in this case. I'm quite certain you would comply with the request without any mention of poisoned dagger under the hood."
Completely agree.
TLG's way of threatening sites that PROMOTE their products is totally absurd.
Every normal company would be glad to get that amount of free advertising. Only TLG and their legal department are totally messed up. I mean, it is not as if this was a secret, this set is being sold officially in stores in several countries around the world for crying out loud.
Looks like they have been pulled from Asda's website.
Still there but 'out of stock': https://direct.asda.com/george/toys-character/action-toys-playsets/lego-wonder-woman-vs-cheetah-76157/050834940,default,pd.html?cgid=D30M1G1C1
@Squid_Kid8 said:
" @Kokan said:
"I like how that gold array looks, surely stickers.. but still, looks pretty cool. Cool enough that I wont mind doing a few dozens.
Also, what is that grey part (there are 4 of them at the center of the antenna) that looks like a Halo Assault Rifle?"
Its the Robot guns from the first LEGO Movie, it was also used in the tranquilizer guns for the ACU in Jurassic World.
Here's the part: https://brickset.com/parts/6191976 "
@Squid: thanks!
Legal action from me: I will not buy this set.
https://mocbrickland.com/
I searched a lot of places for sale and I found that on this website, all of them are even more
I will use this as a special satellite in my rocket factory MOC! Or 2... As said probably stickers, but if not, giggidy giddidy
@AustinPowers:
_AGAIN_, this is a major blockbuster movie. WB controls the press announcements. The LEGO Company is contractually bound to comply with their directives in that regard. They didn't have a choice on this. Failing to act on it could have resulted in either penalties or even revocation of the DC Superheroes license. I know you've got an axe to grind when it comes to TLC, but this wasn't their call.
My Wonder Woman set arrived today from Asda - well packaged in a cardboard box.
"The folly of trying to suppress information about a set that's already being sold in stores has been realised by all concerned, so we are free to publish again!"
lucky you - my twitter account was slapped with a DCMA takedown notice today (!) and I was locked out of my account (for a few mins) because I tweeted about that set 9 days ago! Looks like lawyers suffer from cabin fever too I guess.
Ok, I went pallet diving today. Walked into Wal-Mart and thought I really hit the jackpot. No sign of any kind, but Creator 31097 was marked down to $49. I even took a picture expecting there to be an issue at check-out, but nope. Grabbed 3 of them at $49 each which is a steal in my opinion. Then I saw a display of 11011 for $34.76 so I grabbed absorber to tuck away for presents. And then I saw the pallet. Technic Dom’s Charger opened and most were damaged. The minions sets were there too. Then I saw the Wonder Woman sets in a three count case. I left one. I am not a big DC guy, but that box art is awesome. A good day today!
@TroyFitz:
I've seen the Gru set in one store, but that's it from the new sets.