LEGO Drama
Consignment chaos, movie-making lessons, and another week of people cleaning up messes—by Stephen Schleicher
This week offered a reminder that systems work great—right up until the moment they don’t.
Whether it’s a six-figure LEGO collection caught in a legal dispute, a movie star realizing pre-production actually matters, or publishers scrambling to keep projects on track, the most interesting stories weren’t about success.
They were about what happens when things start slipping out of control.
STEPPING ON A LEGO BAREFOOT
If you haven’t followed the Bricks and Minifigs drama this week, let me catch you up:
An ailing elderly man amassed a $200,000 collection of Star Wars LEGO sets (MIB)
A corporation making exactly the kind of decision corporations tend to make.
YouTuber Reckless Ben bringing it to the world’s attention
Questionable conduct by local and state police
A major religious entanglement
A feckless PR lackey
Fingers being pointed on all sides
Patreon CEO stepping in and telling Bricks and Minifigs to step off
And so much more!
It’s a crazy mess that you can do a deep dive on your own, but be prepared… it is a wild ride.
To be clear, corporations are designed to protect revenue first and relationships second, even if that means bad publicity.
Also, this has nothing to do with the LEGO company. Though they’ve been very quiet about this consignment dispute.
If a movie about Tetris getting snuck out of Russia, or the one about meme stocks can garner festival awards, then you can bet that the Bricks and Minifigs drama has everything needed to become the next streaming hit.
HERE’S THE WAY WE DO IT
Hollywood has somehow convinced itself that spending $250 million on a movie before figuring out exactly what the movie is remains a viable strategy.
Reportedly, while working with Christopher Nolan on the Odyssey movie, Tom Holland kept reaching out to Sony and Marvel to tell them they can’t keep making movies by the seat of their pants.
I’m surprised it took Holland this long to figure it out.
The Marvel Method worked when few people were cranking out a plethora of comics in the early days, but it doesn’t quite work that smoothly today.
While documentaries allow you to find the story in the edit, that’s not the best way to create a multi-million dollar movie.
This is why movies need:
A clear vision
A clear theme, purpose, or message
Time spent in pre-production to reduce any major problem or issue during production
Did Holland’s demands work? Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives on July 31, 2026.
NEW ARCHIE WRITER
When we first kicked off our weekly newsletters, one of our earliest reports had W. Maxwell Prince writing the upcoming Archie #1 from Oni Press.
Today, Prince is out, and Ben H. Winters is in. Another reminder that even the best-laid publishing plans rarely survive first contact with reality.
Oni Press didn’t state why Prince had exited the project, though we hear it has to do with scheduling conflicts with Ice Cream Man, and The just launched The Deadman series.
Winters made his Oni Press writing debut with Cruel Universe, so perhaps the hope that a slightly askew Archie-verse isn’t completely gone.
Archie embarks on a whirlwind, all-star adventure through his town’s past, present, and future . . . beginning with a local film festival that’s about to turn everything upside down! And, at the center of it all, lies an enigmatic paradox that only Archie’s pal Jughead Jones can possibly unravel…
I’m still picking this up when it arrives in September, mainly because of the Oni/Archie deal that keeps the Archie titles alive.
BURIED UNDER THE MASK
After years of development starts, stops, reboots, recasts, and studio reshuffling, He-Man finally made it to the big screen…again.
Jared Leto as Skeletor is a bit over the top…
Are you going?
Whether it’s a six-figure LEGO collection, a superhero movie, or a comic book relaunch, the lesson seems to be the same:
Systems work best when somebody is paying attention.
The moment nobody is, things get weird.
The system remains operational… barely.
Cheers,
Stephen Schleicher