by canofhumdingers » Sat Nov 25, 2017 8:26 pm
well, it’s not really information that companies freely share (for obvious reasons) so outside of people who actually work on or under these contracts, most answers you get will be educated guesses at best.
From my limited knowledge, I believe they pay a lump sum licensing right for whatever privilege they’re seeking (in this case, to make Godzilla figures). And then they probably also pay a percentage of the sales on top of that. I’m sure NECA (like most manufacturers) has a pretty accurate count of number of units sold. Toho’s cut might be “x” cents per unit sold, or “x” percent of the dollar amount. So, they might get something like 50c per figure sold, or maybe NECA sells $10,000 of figures and Toho gets 5%? But either way, the sales figures are most likely based on the amount NECA sells to retailer (like toys r us or bigbadtoystore) and NOT how many are sold by the stores to consumers. Once it’s on a store shelf, NECA most likely already has their money and it’s up to the store to sell it for their own profit.
Contracts are almost always limited in time by months or years and then they can be renewed, renegotiated, etc.
As for individual figures, Neca probably produce how many they think they can realistically sell. If it sells really well in a short time while it’s still convenient at the factory, they might produce more. Once they’re done and the factory has set up for something else, they’re less likely to go reset the factory and make more of an old figure.
That’s my understanding of things from years of collecting. But I have no direct knowledge and I may be completely wrong about any or all of it.