Sideshow Collectibles Inc. has long had blockbuster Hollywood licensing deals to create limited-edition figurines based on characters from “Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars.”
But it’s a new sort of action figure that is surging in popularity, defining and expanding a key demographic in the firm’s customer base.
Would you believe Maxwell Smart?
With figurines based on characters like the bumbling “Get Smart” hero along with others from such TV shows as “The Twilight Zone,” “Star Trek” and “The Outer Limits,” Sideshow is tapping into a retro renaissance. Camp-enamored baby boomers are whipping out their credits cards the figurines go for around $200 each for replicas from 1960s and 1970s TV shows.
“These are for serious collectors, people decorating their homes or offices with iconic characters that moved them in their childhood or as an adult,” said Greg Anzalone, Sideshow’s chief executive. “Our average collector is older, and identifies on an emotional level with the characters.”
Most Sideshow buyers are aged 18 to 50. Eighty percent are male and most are middle- to upper-income; 50 percent of them are baby boomers.
Since it was founded in 1995, Sideshow has turned out thousands of figurines based on a wide array of licensed and proprietary items, film prop replicas and fine art collectibles. Some are priced as high as $6,000. The company expects to do $30 million in sales this year. Not bad for a group that started out in a Woodland Hills garage.
Showbiz roots
Originally called Sideshow Productions, the firm launched as a group of five artists who specialized in making miniature-figures for special effects scenes in big-budget films, TV commercials and for cable networks like HBO.
They took their figure-modeling expertise and segued into designing studio prototypes for the toy industry and landed accounts with large local companies, including Mattel Inc.
“Once we started to see the success the companies were having with some of our work, we decided it was a business we should be in ourselves,” Anzalone said.
Sideshow bought its first license for about $5,000 from Universal for the studio’s “Classic Monsters” series.
By 1999, the company had launched the collection in Target Inc. stores, selling the figurines for $15 each. Later they pulled back from big-box retailers to specialize in higher-end, exclusive collectibles. Sideshow now sells in about 800 comic and specialty retailers across the U.S., and has 25 international distributors.
Three years ago, the company opted to become its own North American distributor, largely for quality control purposes. To get more warehouse space, the Westlake Village-based firm has purchased a 40,000 square foot headquarters in Thousand Oaks and is moving this spring.
Anzalone said that attention to detail is the hallmark of Sideshow’s replicas, thanks to a creative design team with a background expertise in feature film visual effects.
Typically, the replicas come in 12- and 18-inch models, which are made two ways: either out of plastic with fabric clothing or out of polystone, a resin and stone powder compound sometimes called cold-cast porcelain.
Most of Sideshow’s vast collection of figurines about 2,000 to date have 30 moving joints, known as “points of articulation” in figurine parlance.
Replica prototypes are made by 3D design artists in Westlake Village. The prototypes are sent to six factories in China for bulk production.
Partnerships with Lucasfilm, Marvel Comics, Time Warner Inc.’s New Line and Revolution Studios have generated some of the most popular collectibles that Sideshow has produced. The replicas have becomes staples at Comic-Con and Toy Fair, and the company does about one-third of its business at the well-attended shows.
Web darlings
A growing portion of Sideshow’s business comes though its Web site, now about one-third of the sales.
First launched in October 1998 as a single scrolling page with no products, the Web site now has hundreds of pages featuring more than 800 products, and logs between 8 million and 10 million hits per month.
“Sideshow has made 200 ‘Lord of the Rings’ products and gained tremendous exposure that way,” Anzalone said. “But the Internet is the vehicle that has been most beneficial to our business. There is no other way to get this much world exposure in such a short period of time.”
The company puts out 125 to 150 new products a year, and about 95 percent of Sideshow’s work is limited edition models, which adds to the “not for kids” nature of their product.
“Our goal is not to make products for everyone,” Anzalone said. “Our goal is to make products for a select percentage who really want the items, and to keep demand high by keeping availability low.”
Editions run as few as 50 pieces to as many as 10,000, though most are in 1,000 to 2000 range.
Sideshow seems to have found its niche, one Anzalone and his partners creative director Tom Gilliland, vice president of 3D Mat Falls and eCommerce VP Robin Ferguson are committed to maintaining. Ken Morgan, a member of the founding team, left in 2002.
“My partners are artists,” Anzalone said. “My responsibility is to run and grow the business, theirs is to maintain pedigree of brand through high quality.”
