Some Reel Rides Mysteries Explained...
Monday, July 2. 2007
From the May 2007 issue of Model Railroad News:
"...as models are retired from the Reel Rides line, [Tony Diaz of Malibu International] says some of them will reappear in stock form and new colors in the standard Malibu assortment."
Well, that line right there clears up one of the biggest questions I had about the RR line...why so much effort had been spent recreating vehicles that are factory accurate, but wrong for their specific movie roles (like the gas cap on the Tommy Boy GTX or the full Cheyenne trim on the Dazed & Confused C-10). If the original plan was to reissue these as stock cars later on, they'd be more likely to hear complaints and have low sales from Model Railroad guys, who are much more strict about factory-accurate details.
"While the first models are drawn from Paramount and Universal films, other film companies have already agreed to participate."
...and now we understand why they chose the films they did (at least to a degree). Smokey & the Bandit and Dazed & Confused were distributed by Universal, and Tommy Boy and Top Gun were both Paramount-produced movies. In the upcoming wave, Knight Rider, Back to the Future, The Blues Brothers, The Italian Job, and Casino are all Universal pictures. So cars like Mad Max's Interceptor (American International Pictures), the Cannonball Run cars (20th Century Fox), The Beverly Hillbillies' Oldsmobile (CBS), Christine (Columbia Pictures), or Vacation's Truckster (Warner Brothers) are all off-limits for the time being.
"...as models are retired from the Reel Rides line, [Tony Diaz of Malibu International] says some of them will reappear in stock form and new colors in the standard Malibu assortment."
Well, that line right there clears up one of the biggest questions I had about the RR line...why so much effort had been spent recreating vehicles that are factory accurate, but wrong for their specific movie roles (like the gas cap on the Tommy Boy GTX or the full Cheyenne trim on the Dazed & Confused C-10). If the original plan was to reissue these as stock cars later on, they'd be more likely to hear complaints and have low sales from Model Railroad guys, who are much more strict about factory-accurate details.
"While the first models are drawn from Paramount and Universal films, other film companies have already agreed to participate."
...and now we understand why they chose the films they did (at least to a degree). Smokey & the Bandit and Dazed & Confused were distributed by Universal, and Tommy Boy and Top Gun were both Paramount-produced movies. In the upcoming wave, Knight Rider, Back to the Future, The Blues Brothers, The Italian Job, and Casino are all Universal pictures. So cars like Mad Max's Interceptor (American International Pictures), the Cannonball Run cars (20th Century Fox), The Beverly Hillbillies' Oldsmobile (CBS), Christine (Columbia Pictures), or Vacation's Truckster (Warner Brothers) are all off-limits for the time being.
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