Disney’s TRON: Legacy, featuring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Garrett Hedlund, and Olivia Wild and due in theaters on Dec. 17, is the sequel to the cutting-edge, cult favorite TRON movie of the early 1980s. As part of the launch of this latest offering of futuristic science fiction, Disney Consumer Products set out to offer a technologically advanced product line unlike any previous film’s licensing program.
In crafting the TRON: Legacy product line, Disney sought licensees that are known for technological innovation. The product line includes Spin Master as master toy licensee, gaming headphones and an iPod dock from Monster, PC peripherals from Razer, and game controllers and Apple accessories from PDP.
“We went through an exhaustive process to find the right toy licensee,” says Chris Heatherly, vice-president of toys at Disney Consumer Products. “It was a dream to work with Spin Master because they are one of the strongest innovators in the toy space.”
A key example of this innovation lies in the action figure line. The line is the first to feature impulse projection technology, which brings the figures to life by projecting digitized, illuminated, and moving faces onto the figure’s helmet.
While Spin Master’s toy line will certainly target a primary group of kids 6-10 and a secondary collector group, the TRON: Legacy line also has a consumer electronics segment that targets gamers. Monster (best known for its high-end Monster Cables) will be making a concerted push to establish itself in the gamer space with the introduction of the Monster TRON T1 over-ear headphones that feature noise suppression and a built-in microphone.
“We’re doing a lot of products here that are serious products in their own right that happen to be associated with TRON: Legacy,” says Heatherly. “We aspired to offer products that take advantage of incredible creativity from the films but that work as stand-alone products.”
The initial wave of products will hit shelves in October, while a secondary wave will be introduced in January.