It’s old news.  Almost 40 years old, actually; as this December 5, 1982 newspaper article from the Lakeland Ledger documents how “Film-inspired play things can be risky child’s play for makers”.  Written 3 years after the release of the old 1979 Kenner Products ALIEN toy, here we have public information about how unsuccessful the notorious action figure  actually was for the company.

The article discusses the risky business of licencing toy lines in the late 1970s from popular movies.  It prominently mentions the Kenner 18 inch ALIEN action figure.  Kenner’s loss on the publicly ill received item was around the US$1m mark; a rough conversion makes that figure about US$3.71m today.  Now, that’s a lot of money by anyone’s standard.

-Windebieste.