A History of Hot Toys, Part 3: Batman Begins (2005/2006)

After five years of making meticulously crafted, tailored and accessorised 1/6th-scale military action figures, in 2005 Hong Kong company Hot Toys made a return to high-end movie figures. Back at the turn of the millennium the then-neophyte outfit had released three 1/6th-scale action figures based on film stars and directors, the Famous Type Figure. Those had been unofficial, however. This time, Hot Toys' movie figures would be fully licensed.

Ever since Hot Toys had released their first military figure in 2000 – the U.S. Air Force Combat Aircrew Pilot, based on Tom Cruise in 1986's Top Gun – company founder (and former TV screenwriter) Howard Chan had believed there was scope for a line of high-end figures based on movie properties. Convincing the Hollywood studios he was right proved to be another matter though. "That was a huge hurdle," Chan told the South China Morning Post in 2015. "We were trying to get licenses through Hong Kong agents, and we said we wanted to make action figures. But the agents said, 'What are action figures?'" Chan had little luck getting the agents to understand the kind of adult collectibles market he had in mind, until he went through a Japanese agent instead and landed licenses to create upscale figures based on James Cameron's Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986). The Movie Masterpiece Series was born.

Released towards the tail end of 2005, the initial wave of 1/6th-scale Movie Masterpiece action figures – Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese in Terminator (MMS 01), a battle-damaged T-800 from Terminator (MMS 02) and Michael Biehn again as Corporal Hicks in Aliens (MMS 03) – bore the benefits of the years of hard craft Hot Toys' artisans had been putting in on the company's military figures, refining articulation, outfitting, sculpting and painting. (As noted in the previous post in this series, Hot Toys had been taking inspiration for the head sculpt likenesses of their military figures from film stars and other famous folk, but in 2004 they'd also made a tentative return to movie figures by collaborating with artist and figure designer Eric So on a 12-inch James Dean figure.) By the first half of the following year, the Movie Masterpiece line had expanded to include Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Robocop (1987) and Alien vs. Predator (2004) figures. Then, in summer 2006, Hot Toys released an action figure based on an even bigger blockbuster from 2005: Christopher Nolan's Christian Bale-starring Batman Begins.

The previous year Hot Toys had secured the rights to produce smaller scale Batman Begins blind box diorama snap kits, with the boxes containing variously a Batman bust, a small action figure, a Batmobile/Tumbler and other snap-together models.

Now, over a year on from the release of the film, Hot Toys unveiled their first ever 1/6th-scale high-end Batman figure, MMS 13.

Limited to just 1100 pieces, each figure came accompanied by a hand-numbered certificate of authenticity, and featured several interchangeable hands, Grapnel Gun, Batarang and mini-mine accessories, and an epically voluminous cape. 

For the time it was an impressive piece, as contemporaneous reviewer Anti-Hero pointed out on Michael Crawford's Captain Toy site, and even today it stands up as an evocative, cleverly engineered and costumed representation of Christin Bale's Batman Begins suit. 

Just two years later, however, Hot Toys would take a second crack at the Batman Begins costume, to coincide with the release of Christopher Nolan and co.'s sequel The Dark Knight – and this time the results would be even more impressive...

A History of Hot Toys, Part 2: First Official Release (2000) and Modern Military Figures

At the turn of the millennium, Hong Kong designer and TVB screenwriter Howard Chan channelled his love of action figures into first a pop culture toy and collectible shop – Cool Toys on Causeway Bay – then a line of high-end 1/6th-scale action figures: Hot Toys. Chan's initial foray into the 1/6th figure scene was the Famous Type Figure. Unlicensed and unofficial, each of the three released Famous Type Figures was based on film stars or directors: Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 2, Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix, and George Lucas as, well, George Lucas in his signature plaid shirt and jeans.

Thereafter, for their first major release, Chan and his cohorts turned their attention to modern military figures, no doubt inspired by the success of fellow Hong Kong outfit Dragon Models, who in 1999 had launched their 1/6th-scale military New Generation Life Action Figures. But though Hot Toys would spend the ensuing five years concentrating on military figures, not returning to movie figures until 2005, that didn't stop Chan and co. from basing the likenesses of their military types on famous film folk...

Released in 2000, Hot Toys' first official 1/6th action figure was the U.S. Air Force Combat Aircrew Pilot F-14 Tomcat Pilot. Identified on the back of the box as one "Jack Carter", there was no mistaking who the figure was actually inspired by: Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell from 1986's Top Gun.

For the time, the quality and attention to detail on the figure was remarkable, from the head sculpt to the body, the outfit to the accessories. Interviewed by the South China Morning Post in February 2015, Howard Chan recalled that in order to ensure the accuracy of the walkie-talkie accessory, he slept in the Chinese factory producing the figure for three days. "You know how those old walkie-talkies had these twisted wires?" he explained. "We ended up taking a huge spool of wire, dipping it in hot water to soften it, then a worker would take a needle and coil it by hand."

The same year, Hot Toys released a second Combat Aircrew Pilot, an F/A-18 Strike Fighter Pilot by the name of "Alan J. Nance", clearly based on Will Smith' Captain Steve Hiller from 1996's Independence Day. Thus the company's course was set for the next few years, as Hot Toys issued a succession of highly detailed and accessorised military figures featuring head sculpts bearing striking resemblances to everyone from Ice Cube (Nuclear, Biological & Chemical Protective Gear, 2002) to David Beckham (U.S. Airborne Ranger, 2006), Jake Gyllenhaal (Air Force T.A.C.P., 2006) to Russell Crowe (U.S. NSW Forces Desert Ops Mk43, 2008).

By the mid-2000s Hot Toys had returned to producing film-based figures with the Movie Masterpiece Series – this time fully licensed and official – yet the company carried on creating military figures well into the late 2000s, its sculptors and painters continuing to hone their talents on ever more realistic head sculpts. One of the most significant of these came with the USMC Three Infantry Battalions in Fallujah M249 Saw Gunner in 2007, a figure which sported a sculpt based on an actor who would feature prominently in Hot Toys' plans going forward – and who in a different guise had already made an appearance the year before as a Movie Masterpiece figure...

A History of Hot Toys, Part 1: The Famous Type Figure (Circa 2000)

For the first post proper in this prospective series on Hong Kong company Hot Toys and their 1/6th-scale high-end action figures – following a prelude in the form of George Lucas's head – here are a couple of examples, taken from my own collection, of the earliest Hot Toys figures:

The Famous Type Figure. Produced in limited quantities (some estimates put it at just 500 of each figure) circa 2000, there were three of these, all unlicensed (in other words, unofficial): a figure based on the aforementioned Mr. Lucas, alias The Director; a figure based on Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 2 (directed, not entirely coincidentally I suspect, by Hong Kong action movie maestro John Woo), and a figure based on Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix. As I noted in my prelude post, I only own the head sculpt of George Lucas, but I own complete examples of the other two Famous Type Figures, in the two types of boxes they were issued in.

Opinions differ as to which was the first to be released. Some collectors say Neo came first, packaged as he is in a black box with no sign of the Hot Toys branding, unlike the yellow-and-orange boxes of Ethan and George. Others say the reverse is true, that Ethan and George came first in their bright Hot Toys boxes, with Neo following in the black box with all references to Hot Toys removed (the presumption being for legal reasons, these being unlicensed figures). The release dates of the movies in question – 1999 for The Matrix, 2000 for Mission: Impossible 2 – would suggest that Neo came first, but while there is a copyright date of 2000 on Ethan's yellow box, there's no date at all on Neo's black box. Muddying the waters still further, I've seen examples of not just Neo but Ethan and George in the black-design box. Perhaps if Hot Toys founder Howard Chan is ever passing this way, he can pronounce on which was actually the first Famous Type Figure.

In any case, the Famous Type Figure was by no means the first line of high-end 1/6th-scale action figures to be based on film characters. Takara had produced Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) Real Action Figures, albeit with limited articulation, while in 1995 fellow Japanese outfit Medicom teamed with Takara to produce Judge Dredd (1995), Alien (1979) and Predator (1987) figures, launching their Real Action Heroes line (or Real Action Series as they were originally called). 

What Howard Chan and his coconspirators brought to the party was a body (or "buck" in collector parlance) with articulation comparable with the contemporaneous likes of Medicom or Dragon Models ("over 34 joints" as the box blurb puts it), outfitting and tailoring that was a cut above the 1/6th figure competition, and likenesses that were remarkable for their time.

Neo, Ethan and George are all recognisable as their celluloid/real-world counterparts, and sport outfits that hang fairly realistically on bodies that approximate how the human body moves. Neo in particular is an impressive piece considering his age. On first inspection his black outfit looks quite simple, but the tailoring is excellent, his trench coat is wired along the edges to enable dynamic blowing-in-the-wind poses, he has all the requisite gun holsters underneath, and his boots boast painted silver buckles and brushed silver toecaps. In addition, his accessories comprise four metal guns – two Berettas and two Heckler & Koch MP5Ks – and a pair of shades that sit nicely on his five o'clock-shadowed face.

It would be five years before Hot Toys returned to making 1/6th figures based on film properties, launching the Movie Masterpiece Series in 2005 with figures based on The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986) and other franchises, this time fully licensed and official. In the interim, the company turned to creating modern military figures – although still taking inspiration for head sculpt likenesses from famous types, starting with Hot Toys' first official release...