[Toy Fair 2020] Hasbro Entertainment Brand Preview

At the 2020 Toy Fair Hasbro held their annual Entertainment Brand Preview. There was a tremendous amount to cover this year since on top of the regular staples like Star Wars, Transformers, Marvel, Power Rangers, and Nerf new products and partnerships with G.I. Joe and Ghostbusters. The brand preview always starts with a presentation from brands with the most relevant information or upcoming projects. This year that presentation was live streamed and many item reveals were made available for Premium Hasbro Pulse members as they were revealed with wider pre-order for non-premium members starting later that day. One special highlight was Ivan and Jason Reitman coming out to talk about the upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife movie and being presented with custom figures. One of the bigger announcements was the reveal of the no-pin figure, where the joints of the new figures don’t show the typical metal pin to create an extra layer of realness. After the presentation press were invited to the show room area to get photos of the products and talk and interview the creators.

As I mentioned with a few new licenses there is a lot of ground to cover and this year I am starting with the more recent acquisitions and then moving into the more typical product lines.

Saban’s Power Rangers
Hasbro became the master toy licensee for Saban’s Power Rangers way back in 2018 with the first wave in their lightning line revealed last year. That lightning line continues to expand the 6’’ scale figures with Rangers from many different series including Mighty Morphin, Beast Morphers, S.P.D., and time force. The lightning line also continues to use artist Tom Whalen for the box art.

Other items include 12’’ Figures, Zoids, roleplay items, and car and Nano Metalfigs crossovers with Jada.

Finally in the more adult roleplay line was the Power Rangers Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin Green Dragon Dagger.

[Product description] The world’s most memorable trumpet knife, aka flute sword, aka the Dragon Dagger is here from Hasbro! Tommy Oliver used the Dragon Dagger to call the powerful Dragonzord from the sea, and he never even had to move his mouth! With this Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Dragon Dagger collectible, fans can play some sweet synth tunes, mix up the music in remix mode, or display this epic piece of Power Rangers history on their shelves.

G. I. Joe
G.I. Joe is back, with the upcoming movie later in the year it seems Hasbro has opened their vault up and started to bring in new items. First up for Pre-Order in their Classified Series was Snake Eyes. The item has a ton of accessories and extras including an exclusive Arashikage gear storage rack. Roadblock, Scarlett, and Duke figures were also revealed. There was also a line of clothing, hats, and sneakers.

Ghostbusters
Starting last year with the Transformers X Ghostbusters collaboration Hasbro seems to have gone ahead and picked up the toy line for Ghostbusters. Stylized figures, roleplay, and even plushes were on display but the two best reveals were the Plasma Series of 6’’ figures which include the original four Ghostbusters, Gozer, and Dana with a Terror Dog build-a-figure.

The last big reveal was the Ghostbusters Plasma Series Spengler’s Neutrona Wand. The adult line of roleplay added this iconic piece as their first step item.
[Product description] Real or not, with this Ghostbusters Plasma Series Spengler’s Neutrona Wand, fans can pretend to suit up as part of the Ghostbusters team and imagine blastin’ all sorts of frightening phantasms and eerie ectoplasmic entities! With premium design and deco, LEDs, authentic sound effects, motorized vibrations intensity adjustment, stream extension with four unique bustin’ modes, and display stand.

Star Wars
Star Wars always has a bunch of new items to reveal whether there is a new movie or not. This year the main focus was The Mandalorian and all The Child (AKA Baby Yoda). The other big announcement was the release of The Empire Strikes Back Black Series Figures with original style Kenner backing. For ESB Hasbro is also releasing a Retro collection of figures with a worn backing.

Other new reveals include a new figure in the Hyper Real Series, this time Luke in his Bespin outfit.  These 8-inch figures feature a stainless steel wire frame inside of an injection molded figure. This basically allows for complete pose-ability without joints in the figure. The figures also come with extra accessories and premium packaging.

The next Force FX Elite lightsaber was revealed as Darth Revans and a Black Series Snowspeeder rounded out some of the new product reveals.

Transformers
The Transformers line was highlighted by the Netflix partnership for the War for Cybertron series. A wave of figures in this line were the spotlight of brand. There were however plenty of other revelas including the studio series constructicon figures that allowed you finish the Revenge of the Fallen Devastator. A new Quintesson, Titan’s Scorponok, and Sky Lynx were also revealed. The Sky Lynx figure was especially cool as Hasbro worked with Nasa to get the official NASA logo on the figure and also named the ship The Magnificence.

Marvel
Marvel had a lot of products including waves from the upcoming Black Widow movie and plenty of Age of Apocalypse figures. Wolverine figures of Hugh Jackman’s portrayal were one spotlight along with a Professor X and Magneto with Patrick Stewart/James McAvoy and Ian McKellen/Michael Fassbender head sculpts. Gwen Stacy, Storm, Venom, Deadpool 2, and Hydra troopers were also highlights in the legends series.

Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering

Hasbro Gaming

What would a Hasbro event be without a goodie bag with some product samples from their product lines.

I’ll end of course with my customary thanks to everyone at Hasbro as well as well as their awesome press partners at both LitzkyPR and Rogers & Cowan for both inviting Hi-Def Ninja into their showroom and for putting on an amazing experience for media at the Toy Fair!

About the author

Media Journalist | Michael loves all things pop culture and has an opinion about everything whether you ask for it or not. Michael collects steelbooks, posters, convention exclusives, LEGO, Transformers, and everything in between.