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At the annual International Nuremberg Toy Fair Warner Bros. Consumer Products will unleash an incredible lineup of attractive licensing topics which are dominated by two extraordinary event-movies in 2008. The first blockbuster is a reunion with one of the world’s most popular super heroes and one of the largest and celebrated franchises the world over: Batman returns and he is better than ever! In “The Dark Knight” Christian Bale as Batman does anything in his power to restore order in Gotham, supported by lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). But shortly after, the Joker (Heath Ledger) brings chaos back to the city. “The Dark Knight” opens on July, 31st, 2008. Various licence holders are developing products inspired by Batman, among them for example Mattel, Lego and Carrera. Mattel will launch toys figures with exciting accessories of various characters from “The Dark Knight”, as well as a product line of vehicles and helicopters that are used in the movie. First of all of course the Batmobile, which will this time combine two Batman-vehicles, which are activated by pushing a button. Bruce Wayne`s sports coupé will transform from a sportscar into a cool defense machine – simply by exchanging the driver figurine from Bruce Wayne to Batman, the turbo engine and rockets launchers are activated. 
The second blockbuster, which will catapult the licensed partners into the 21st century, is SPEED RACER, the new masterpiece by Larry and Andy Wachowski. The brothers succeed once more with their revolutionary visual effects and cutting edge story-telling. SPEED RACER marks a reunion for the Wachowski brothers and Joel Silver, who previously worked together on The Matrix trilogy. The action movie is about the adventures of the young race car driver Speed in his thunderous Mach 5. His arch-enemy is Racer X, with whom he competes in hot races and action scenes. With Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman and Matthew Fox, SPEED RACER has an excellent cast and opens at May, 8th, 2008. The Looney Tunes Sportparty will hit the ground running this year, after a very successful warm up in 2007. The popular and famous Looney Tunes characters will bring exercise to children from six to ten years old and will thus support physical fitness. In 2007 about 500 elementary schools registered for this extraordinary event and pupils were enthusiastic about the specially composed Looney Tunes music and the extensive sports course. Now the Looney Tunes Sportparty goes on tour in 2008: a 1,000 square meter sports road show is planned for all major cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, in addition to the events in elementary schools, which will also continue in 2008. Among the licensed partners of the Looney Tunes Sportparty are Adidas. The company has designed a Looney Tunes Active collection that includes apparel, shoes and accessories. The collection represents the popular characters Taz, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Bugs Bunny and of course Tweety. A special honour will be bestowed upon the the Looney Tunes at this year’s toy fair: They have won the International Trend Selection at the LicenseCenter 2008. The highly popular cartoon heroes have been awarded the title Top-5 license topic in Germany by the MEP Licensing magazine, the media partner of the toy fair. During the fair, which runs from the 7th until 12th of February, the Looney Tunes will be presented to the public in a special exhibition at the License Center. With 98 percent aided awareness, it is one of the most popular Looney Tunes worldwide: Tweety, the cute, yellow canary, had a comprehensive relaunch last year. In 2007 Tweety flew towards lifestyle brands and became the star of an extraordinary limited collection of luxury products e.g. Meissen children dinnerware sets, Sioux moccasins and first-class toys, among them the high-quality jumping jack Tweety and rocking horse Tweety from the “Hellerau/Dresdner Spielzeug” manufacturers. In the next step of the brand relaunch Tweety will be strongly positioned as a stylish brand for young fashionistas, young girls and women. Various activities are planned, e.g. a model contests and a fashion collection which will attract a young target audience. |
