Toy Fair Highlights: 'Potter', 'Iron Man', 'Titans'

One big revenue stream for studios and their many blockbusters is merchandising. The toy business is never a bigger deal than it is right now, during the annual Toy Fair in New York. This year, Toy Story 3, Twilight, Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, and Iron Man are among the many highlights of a $21 billion business.

How big are these toys? NPD Group reports that Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen accounted for - gasp - almost $600 million in toy sales last year, although Disney is by far the industry leader in merchandising revenue. Here are a few of this year's more talked-about toys. The one above, Perseus from Clash of the Titans, comes to us from Bloody-Disgusting, and below we have images from Collider (Iron Man 2), Seibertron (Transformers), and the Toy Fair site for the new Harry Potter Lego series.

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Are These Early Thor and Captain America Designs?

Though not official concept art or anything, we are getting our first look at the costume designs for the last two Avengers, Captain America and Thor (or, chronologically, Thor and Cap). Kotobukiya has designed character busts and miniatures for several Marvel heroes in the past, and bases its work on the costume artwork developed by the studio. So this is pretty much what they'll look like.

Though these works haven't been unveiled as the real deal, Comic Book Movie speculates that since Kotobukiya is the only company that does these for Marvel and since both characters will be part of the company's new Marvel Reborn line of collectibles, then it stands to reason that Thor and Captain America will look quite a bit like this. I guess there aren't many surprises. A little more texture in Captain America's uni and the boots are quite a bit cooler than I would have imagined. We'll know more about the designs when trailers or production photos come out, but these aren't disappointing to me. Check out the rest of the images:

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New Look at 'Iron Man 2' Toys

A few images have popped up for the new line of Iron Man 2 toys, and they have a few features we may not see in the film, but they're worth mentioning anyway. First, let's see what Robert Downey, Jr. would look like if he treated his face the way Nicole Kidman does:

Comic Book Movie says that it's possibly too early to introduce he Extremis storyline (despite its appearance on an Iron Man DVD featurette), however, that sure is the Extremis armor Tony Stark is wearing on the box art below. The reason it might be too early is because Stark doesn't really need to invent it yet, in the movies, anyway. It's a great bit of Iron Man lore, and I'm sure it will happen if the film series goes on past The Avengers by a couple of installments.

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Cool 'District 9' Prawn Maquette Auctioned on eBay

Longtime Big Picture reader Chris Wulff sure did enjoy District 9, so much so that he was miffed that there was no merchandising tie-in for action figures and the like. True, Sony didn't know what it had on its hands, and I wonder now if we might see a video game down the line on this one. Wouldn't surprise me.

But Chris wasn't the only one who noticed there weren't any toys to be had for District 9. eBay user littlethingsintn built his own "Custom District 9 Prawn Mecha Battle Suit" maquette, which means you probably shouldn't play with it too rough. It's enterprising for sure (although maybe not entirely legal to sell it). The creator says, "This piece is 9" tall and in scale with 3.3/4 or 1/18th scale figures as you can see from the photo (GI Joe is not included). This model is, I feel, one of my best and I poured a lot of heart and soul into it." Take a look at a few more shots of the Prawn:

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'Twilight Zone' Featured in Classic TV Stamp Set

I was in the post office the other day and saw one of the "coming soon" ads for stamp collections that were on the way. It was too distant for me to make out exactly what it was, but one of the upcoming collections was dedicated to the golden age of TV. And now Sci Fi Wire has better quality images and more information about those stamps.

The set includes Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance, the Lone Ranger, Burns and Allen, Ozzie and Harriet, original Tonight Show host Steve Allen, Jackie Gleason and Art Carney, Alfred Hitchcock, Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, Jack Webb from Dragnet, Lassie, Red Skelton, Uncle Miltie, Dinah Shore, Groucho Marx, Phil Silvers, from the world of puppets, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie as well as Howdy Doody, William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd, and Rod Serling. Most of those names are familiar to you if you're over, say, 30. You may not have ever seen Red Skelton, but you have a perspective for when he was famous. I am once again thrilled to see Rod Serling mentioned anywhere. He was, if I may be so bold, the equivalent of J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, and Ronald Moore put together. Not only did he create The Twilight Zone, which celebrates its golden anniversary this October, he wrote 92 of the 156 episodes himself. And that's not 92 episodes featuring the castaways on Lost; it's 92 completely new stories, some of which still stand as pillars of science fiction.

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