Warner Brothers Announces Harry Potter LEGO Extension, Pics Show Up

Everybody knew it already, and just a few days ago it was made official by Warner Brothers and LEGO in a joint press release:

Warner Bros. Consumer Products (WBCP) announced today an extension of its successful partnership with leading toy manufacturer, The LEGO Group, to bring the magical world of Harry Potter to fans everywhere. Under the agreement, The LEGO Group is creatively tapping into the Harry Potter magic to develop spell-binding construction sets and a board game inspired by the property in anticipation of the November 19 theatrical release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, as well as the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 in 2011.

“We have enjoyed a longstanding, successful partnership with The LEGO Group around Harry Potter and we are delighted to continue this relationship as we approach the release of the seventh film,” said Karen McTier, executive vice president, domestic licensing and worldwide marketing, Warner Bros. Consumer Products. “Fans of the franchise will be excited to discover the wonderfully original LEGO products inspired by the beloved stories and characters.”

“The world of Harry Potter has inspired some of our most successful products and we are thrilled to continue creating imaginative play opportunities for fans everywhere,” said Jill Wilfert, vice president, global licensing for LEGO Group. “The magical stories brought to life in the films give us the potential for an incredible array of offerings, the best of which are represented in our upcoming lines.”

Full press release

We now have photos of the sets that were shown at Toy Fair 2010 in New York from Figures.com. I had expected they would have shown up officially at the London Toy Fair. Huw at Brickset who saw some of those sets in London had predicted that they would be well received and I believe they will be as well, if the pictures are a good indication.

lego-hagrids-hut

The sets shown:

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Brickvention 2010 in Australia Wraps Up

The group pool at flickr for Brickvention 2010 is now active and being updated. Brickvention is a LEGO-oriented convention and exhibition held every year in Australia. This year’s event took place January 23rd and January 24th in Melbourne. There were hundreds of models/sets/MOCs from all around Australia, along with demonstrations … Read more

LEGO at the London Toy Fair

Update: February 14, 2010: Photos of the 2010 LEGO Harry Potter sets are available. Huw over at Brickset attended the London Toy Fair today to look at LEGO’s upcoming offerings. No photography was allowed unfortunately. Huw made plenty of observations on the displayed sets. A few notes on Huw’s observations: … Read more

Review of LEGO Atlantis: The Movie

LEGO Atlantis - The Movie

A quick note: I was mistaken yesterday, LEGO did do some promotion of the movie on the Atlantis.LEGO.com site, but I still believe more should have been done on LEGO.com as well as the Cartoon Network website. That’s just me.

If you’ve been following the Atlantis Theme, nothing in the movie should be a surprise. I’m going to post a short review, then some notes from the movie, and then a full synopsis of the movie (all in this post). If you don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading after the short review in the paragraph after this.

My overall impression is that it was very well done. The animation was good, the voice talent was good. As an AFOL, I wasn’t cringing at anything (and they even referrenced AFOLs at the end of the movie), it was enjoyable, and I could see kids really liking it. It showcased every single one of the existing LEGO Atlantis sets except for the 8079 Shadow Snapper. It also showed or hinted at a few large sets that we know about, but that aren’t yet available for purchase (later this year). It also showed something that… I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I’ll post it at the bottom, but let’s just say that it could either turn into a huge theme on its own, or be a sub-theme of Atlantis. It used almost all of the content from the Atlantis.LEGO.com website with the exception of the backstory around Dr. Artimus Rhodes and his great-granddaughter Professor Samantha Artesia Rhodes. This was probably due to the time constraints of a half-hour movie. It will be interesting to see if the LEGO Brickmaster Atlantis book fills in any gaps. It used all of the minifigs we’ve seen in the Atlantis sets, and everything but the Neptune Carrier was scaled appropriately.

STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE THE MOVIE SPOILED!!

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More 2010 LEGO Sets at Toys R Us

Having heard that quite a few new 2010 LEGO sets are popping up at Toys R Us and LEGOlands, I paid a visit to the Toys R Us in South Austin earlier today to have a look, and it was surprising. We bought and are going to review in the … Read more

A LEGO Pirate Christmas from Captain Dan & The Scurvy Crew

A new Christmas-themed stop-motion LEGO short/movie has shown up on YouTube. It’s set to “A Pirate Christmas”, a song from the “From the Seas to the Streets” album from Captain Dan & The Scurvy Crew. Pirates versus Santa Claus. Need I say more? It’s a great LEGO-themed music video. Link … Read more