Things on the Grid were so promising. A new movie, years in the making, was on the way. A new roller coaster opened at Walt Disney World. Red lightcycles and data discs were coming to stores. And Hasbro geared up a super elaborate collectors’ set for fans to get their hands on. But then, in classic Tron fashion, it almost all derezzed.
The roller coaster will live on forever, but the same can’t be said for that Hasbro set. After a little over six weeks of availability, the “Tron: Heroes of the Grid” set failed to reach the minimum number of backers to go into production. It’s dead.
This can happen from time to time. The Tron set was released as a “Haslab” project, a special section of Hasbro for more ambitious, expensive projects, which only happens if a certain number of people commit to buying them. Think Kickstarter for licensed toys. The company has done this with properties like Transformers, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and Ghostbusters. And, most of the time, they get funded.
But sometimes they don’t. Like in the case of the Reva lightsaber from Obi-Wan Kenobi, an elaborate Ghost Rider Marvel set, a plush Cookie Monster, and a few others. But while most of those sets got maybe a quarter or halfway to their goals, the Tron set didn’t just fail to reach its goal. It didn’t come close. The $260 set needed 10,000 backers and ended with under 1,400. Which makes the math very easy to do. It only reached about 14% of its goal, which, we think, makes it the least successful Haslab to date. Yikes.
Why is that? Well, for one, the set was very detailed and cool but lacking in a few ways. Mainly, it didn’t take into consideration that fans like figures they can keep on their card backs. You either had to keep the figures on their cards, which would leave you with a very boring display, or open them and ruin the super cool collectibles. Plus, most of the value in the otherwise simple display set was in the lighting features, which were much less exciting without opening your super-limited figures.
And, finally, the big one. Tron just seems to be dead. It’s a franchise from another generation that people keep trying to revive, with mixed success, but it just can’t seem to catch on with anyone new. The financial disappointment of Tron: Ares proved it, and this just adds another nail in the coffin. Which is a shame. We really would’ve loved to see what happened next and to buy a few toys for much less than $260.
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