In ten years, Lego has recovered from the brink of bankruptcy to a blockbuster movie and strong sales. Lego Designer Mark Stafford recently took to Reddit to offer some insight on what went wrong in the first place and how the Danish toy company turned it around. The troubles, he said, involved bad management and expensive and unpopular new products. The LEGO company at that stage had no idea how much it cost to manufacture the majority of their bricks, they had no idea how much certain sets made. The most shocking finding was about sets that included the LEGO micro-motor and fiber-optic kits — in both cases it cost LEGO more to source these parts then the whole set was being sold for — everyone of these sets was a massive loss leader and no one actually knew. This was combined with a decision to ‘retire’ a large number of the LEGO Designers who had created the sets from the late 70′s through the 80′s and into the 90′s and replace them with 30 ‘innovators’ who were the top graduates from the best design colleges around Europe.
Unfortunately, though great designers they knew little specifically about toy design and less about LEGO building. The number of parts climbed rapidly from 6000 to over 12,000 causing a nightmare of logistics and storage and a huge amount of infrastructure expansion for no gain in sales. Products like Znap, Primo, Scala and worst; Galidor all came out of this period. Let’s take a closer look at those new products that almost led to disaster. Lego Technic Fiber Optic Multi Set (1996) The “fiber optics” in this this Technic kit are actually clear plastic tubes that connect to a battery-operated LED-light pack. These specialized parts cost more to produce than the entire set was being sold for. The Znap line was an obvious reaction to K’Nex, an American construction toy company that was founded in 1993. Like those of K’Nex, Znap pieces were more elaborate than traditional Lego bricks, and could allow for more architectural creations, like bridges. Ultimately, Znap proved to be an inferior competitor and failed to catch on.
To make matters worse, Lego even used those highly unprofitable Technic motors in some of the sets. Lego’s Duplo line is intended for children 1-5 years old and has been around since 1975 (barring a couple brief absences). The Primo offshoot was intended for babies too young to even play with regular Duplo bricks. And unlike Duplo pieces, they were not compatible with regular Lego pieces. Primo was succeeded by Lego Baby, which was phased out in 2005. The niche market was simply not profitable for the company. For some reason, Lego decided to revive an obscure line from ’79 targeted at young girls. The one thing that kept the Scala doll line remotely attached to the Lego brand was the use of some bricks in the play sets, and from ’97-’98, the brick studs were in flower-shapes incompatible with other Lego sets. Stafford considers the Galidor line to be Lego’s most heinous offense. Based on a kid’s show of the same name, the line was basically an action figure series with awkward features like interchangeable arms for characters.
Each set in the line featured specialized pieces, which were expensive to produce and in practically no way resembled a Lego product. Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, a former McKinsey consultant, came in as CEO in 2004 and rescued the company. He tossed series that were wasting money, cut the number of Lego pieces by more than half, and began hiring talented designers who were also passionate fans of the brand (like Stafford), rather than just smart people with impressive degrees. The company continued to grow the success of the massively popular Bionicle line, as well as licensed series spearheaded by “Star Wars” sets. Now, designers like Stafford produce successful kits like those in “Legends of Chima,” which combine original storytelling with the classic Lego “feel.” For more information on every Lego series — both the good and bad — check out Brickipedia.237 118 20k 33 List Criteria: Vote up the most epic Lego fails in the history of brick-shaped toys. Legos, they’re not for everybody.
Even though there are definitely some Lego geniuses out there, most builders are just okay at putting together small colored blocks into various shapes. But the people on this list might want to rethink their hobby because they’ve created some of the worst Lego creations that have ever been shown to the world. Some of these funny Lego fails are just miserable stacks of blocks with no discernible purpose, but some of the best fails (call the oxymoron police!) are so strange that you might need to seek therapeutic help if you spend any time trying to understand what the builder was trying to accomplish. Try not to lose your mind while you look at these hilarious Lego fails.On this list of abysmal Lego fails there's everything from a Lego Hitler to people who seem to think that the best way to put their Lego together is to keep stacking until it reaches the ceiling. Check out these head scratching Lego fails! Like, who thought these were good?Vote up the most epic Lego fails in history!
Collection Photo: Arto AlanenpääSign in or Subscribe. ‘Great Wall’ fails to measure up against ‘Lego Batman’ at box office 'Fifty Shades Darker' comes in second over Presidents Day weekend. NEW YORK — “The Great Wall” was a hit in China. In North America, it was a dud. The most expensive film ever made in China and with a budget of $150 million, “The Great Wall” was intended to prove that the world’s No. 2 movie marketplace could produce Hollywood-sized blockbusters of its own. Though it ran up $171 million in ticket sales in China, “The Great Wall” pulled in $18.1 million in its North American debut over Presidents Day weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. That was good enough for third place, falling behind last weekend’s top two films, “The Lego Batman” and “Fifty Shades Darker.” The Warner Bros. animated release easily led the box office again with $34.2 million in its second week, sliding only 35 percent. Universal’s “Fifty Shades Darker” sold $21 million in tickets in its second week.
The erotic sequel continues to play well overseas, where it led international business with $43.7 million over the weekend. Slammed by critics, “The Great Wall” didn’t measure up to its initial ambitions. It was produced by Legendary Entertainment, which has since been acquired by Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group. The film, directed by Zhang Yimou, originated with an idea by Legendary chief executive Thomas Tull, who left the company last month. But “The Great Wall” isn’t a bomb. It has made $244.6 million overseas and performed over the weekend in North America slightly better than some pundits expected. “This is absolutely a strategy that’s worldwide,” said Nick Carpou, distribution chief for Universal. “Worldwide, we are one of many markets.” Universal could still claim four of the top 10 films, the other two being “A Dog’s Purpose” ($5.6 million in its fourth week) and “Split” ($7 million in its fifth week), so far the top film of 2017.