Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Chris Thompson and Phil Hunt, Brand Managers for Hero Collector and Die Cast Club:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Eaglemoss, Hero Collector and Die-Cast Club?
A: Eaglemoss has existed as a company for close to 40 years, and was very much a product of the traditional partworks (subscription) model that has been popular in Europe for many decades. Today, Eaglemoss is the world’s leading partwork publisher and licensed collectible company, having produced, marketed and distributed more than 150 collections in more than 30 markets across 5 continents and in 13 different languages. We partner with many of the world’s leading entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Disney, CBS, EON Productions, BBC, HBO, WWE, AMC, Universal Studios and more.
As that industry began to change and evolve, it became necessary to change with it, and to distinguish between the various facets of the business – leading to the development of the Hero Collector, Die-Cast Club and the CreaCrafts brands.
Hero Collector is essentially a hub for all of our genre-based licensed products – ranging from Star Trek to Marvel to Ghostbusters – and with the continued growth of the geek collectibles market, we’ve seen huge success across all channels, including partworks/subscription, e-commerce, and wholesale/retail. Our reputation is built on being the experts – the people who really know what we’re talking about – which is in keeping with our tagline ‘we’re fans, just like you’.
Founded in 2013 by a family of motor enthusiasts with a deep love of collecting and expertise sharpened over three generations, Die-Cast Club offers model builders and collectors of every level of experience unique opportunities to share their passion for excellence – in the form of cars, motorcycles, airplanes and military vehicle replicas across a range of scales. Working closely with the team at Hero Collector and their extensive range of beloved pop-culture licenses, we’ve assembled this exclusive “garage” to bring together some of the most iconic and longed for legends of the road in one place – true stars of the silver screen presented as accurate-to-the-last-detail, in oversized 1:8 scale models that you build yourself from the ground up – making each one truly original.
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Q: Eaglemoss Die-Cast Club recently announced the first 1:8 scale model build-up of the fabled Eleanor Mustang; can you tell us something more?
Phil Hunt: To coincide with the 20th anniversary of the blockbuster movie, Gone in 60 Seconds, we announced the upcoming launch of a subscription program to build a high-quality die-cast metal model of the “star car” from the motion picture – Eleanor. Subscribers will – for the very first time – be able to build a 1:8 scale replica of the car as seen in the movie, with every feature re-produced in stunning detail. The completed model is 22.9 inches long and will include several superb elements: working headlights and tail lights, turning front wheels operated by the steering wheel, opening hood to re-veal Eleanor’s phenomenal Ford small-block racing engine, and opening trunk, which contains the car’s nitro tank. The model will, of course, also feature Eleanor’s iconic Go Baby Go gearshift and NOS switch. The die-cast Eleanor build-up is scheduled to make its US debut in early 2021, with pre-orders commencing in Fall 2020.
Q: Can you give us more insights into your other collections?
Chris Thompson: Star Trek has clearly become one of our flagship brands – starting with the popular Starship Collection, which recently came to a close after 200 issues! Based on its runaway success (and renewed interest in the series in general) we’ve slowly increased our output to include larger-sized (XL) versions of popular models, as well as ships based on the current series, which have all performed incredibly well to help grow and support our burgeoning e-com line. In the years since, we’ve built on that reputation of producing high-quality die-cast starships and adapted them to other popular licenses, such as Battlestar Galactica, Alien, and Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi hit The Orville. In the meantime, as other collections came to an end, we found enormous success with a new range of boutique 1:8 scale licensed models that fans would build over the course of a monthly subscription. This enabled us to give them an opportunity to have their own die-cast DeLorean from Back To The Future or, more recently, the iconic Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. These two vehicles sit nicely alongside other classic rides such as Eleanor from Gone In 60 Seconds and James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 as part of the over-arching Die-Cast Club Garage.
Q: Eaglemoss is the world’s leading partwork publisher; what is your mission?
A: Eaglemoss is not just your destination for collectibles from the most popular pop culture, entertainment, sci-fi and comic hero brands. “Passionate perfectionists.” These are words that many of our partners, employees, licensors, distributors, and customers use to describe us here at Eaglemoss. Others might say “overly obsessive” or “creatively committed,” more devoted to the end product than to the bottom line. They’re all good words, ones that we embrace fully and wholeheartedly.
At Eaglemoss, we believe that if it’s not something that ignites your passion, then it’s probably not something worth doing in the first place. This approach to business drives everything we do in researching, creating, and promoting in every market in which we have a presence. We work closely with our licensors and partners every step along the way to deliver products that our consumers would be proud to own.
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Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months?
Chris Thompson: Aside from continuing with our popular builds, and further expanding our range of starships and figurines, Hero Collector and Die-Cast Club are al-ways taking on new licenses and properties. We’re just gearing up for a huge push in the US with our new line of Marvel Heavyweights figurines that will be available at retail and e-com before launching as their own sub-scription a little later. These hefty figurines bring to life the Marvel Cinemat-ic Universe in glorious cast-metal, and we’ll be following up our September launch with a second wave in Q1 2021. Die-Cast Club is launching a 1:8 scale model of a 1944 Willys MB Jeep®, with some other exciting releases in the pipeline. Beyond that, we have a number of diverse product offer-ings in the lead-up to the holiday season, such as Harry Potter Knitting Kits, Doctor Who Baking Sets, and The Orville ship collection, alongside a host of new licenses and collections to be announced in the coming months. Even as the world has been on lockdown, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to take on and develop new licenses with the same expertise and care you’ve come to know. I don’t mean to be a tease, but it’s fair to say that ‘you aren’t seen nothing yet’.
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