Following on from my last blog post regarding the MFX fire sale Neill Gorton posted the following on the RPF yesterday:
"Hi all
There’s an announcement going up on the website tomorrow but thought I’d give RPF members a heads up and a bit more detail about a change at MFXReplicas. Our license for Doctor Who prop replicas is up for renewal and I’ve decided to not to continue with it. There are some very simple reasons for this and, even though I’d find the speculation amusing, the reality is fairly mundane and has been planned for and anticipated by us for the past twelve months.
First and foremost our Replicas are a business and one that has been running for over 5 years. When we launched we also, as a little sideline, began selling how to DVD’s and more recently ready-made prosthetics. Last year we re-branded the site MFXWarehouse when it became apparent that our other lines where actually becoming a much more viable and profitable business than the Replicas. The Replicas are enormously time consuming and, due to the fact that we’ve kept production of them in-house to maintain quality, they’ve always been a low profit margin cottage industry and, frankly, a bit of a labor of love. I looked in to stepping up production and outsourcing manufacture to China a couple of years ago but was never wholly satisfied that I’d be able to manufacture to the quality and standard I, and our customers, would demand.
Another factor has come in to play in the past five years and that is the success of the parent company “Millennium FX” and our teaching facility, the “Neill Gorton Prosthetics Studio”. They’ve both continued to go from strength to strength and we had an outstanding year last year with huge projects such as “The Wolfman” to our name and the demands on my time have meant it’s become increasingly more and more difficult to find the time to develop new lines for MFXReplicas. So, last year, knowing the license was coming up for renewal this spring, we made a decision to start reviewing the viability of the Replicas line and weigh up whether we’d continue pursuing the replicas business or concentrate our efforts on the more profitable and, frankly, easier to manage aspects of our business. We re-branded the website in anticipation of this being a possible direction for us. Ultimately, when we reviewed the business, it was clear that the investment of time and money required to compete with other companies, in what is already a saturated market, just didn’t make sense. Why fight and gamble financially to be a medium sized fish in a big pond when, with our core business of Film and TV special effects doing so well, we’re already a big fish in a small pond! For five years the Replicas has existed as a ‘bolt on’ business and to turn it in to a much bigger concern would take an enormous investment and shift in our core business practice. Looking forwards we realized that, to make it a more viable and profitable business, we’d need to diversify in to other licenses outside of Doctor Who and the cost of doing this, tooling for new product lines and the financial investment, and time investment, to get them up and running, was simply too big a push when my core team is already stretched managing our existing diverse interests and the demands on my time in other areas are already stretching me.
You may have noticed that there’s more DVD’s on sale on the website recently. We can shoot and edit a DVD in a fraction of the time it takes to develop a new product and at a fraction of the cost and it can all be done in house without a licensor to please. In addition we take 100% of the profit. In the past year we have made a better profit from DVD’s and ready-made prosthetic than Replicas and with a fraction of the effort. Taking in to account the time, effort and economics it’s become a no brainer!
In addition to all of this I have a little Gorton coming along in June and also wish to make more time for my family. So, somewhere, something’s got to give. As much as I’ve loved making these replicas I’ve got to make a sensible business decision. The end of the license period is a natural cut off point and is also one of the driving factors for our Mad March Sale. When the license runs out we have to stop selling replicas so we have to shift the remainder in the next four weeks. There’s not a lot left so it really is first come first served.
So to all of you who have bought our products and been great supporters and collectors of our products thanks for a smashing five years and those of you that have them I hope you continue to enjoy them in the coming years.
Obviously anyone buying a product in the coming month will still get full customer support beyond the end of March as it’ll still be business as usual at MFX and MFXWarehouse.
Best wishes and thank you.
Neill "
This basically confirms what I've heard for a while now: that MFX have lost/returned their Doctor Who merchandise licence and as of April 2010, MFX Replicas will effectively cease to exist. Now Neill Gorton may put a positive spin on it to save face but the account from a reliable source says otherwise. The BBC have revoked the licence due to various issues.
At this point you may expect me to start celebrating however I take no satisfaction in this. Some may paint it as a victory of sorts. If it is, it's a pyrrhic one. My issue with MFX has always been that they should not have got the licence to produce prop replicas of props they didn't make in the first place. This opinion has been utterly vindicated by their woefully substandard Sonic Screwdriver.
When producing replicas of their own original pieces, such as the Cybermen heads, Oods and other heads and masks, they excel and their pieces would not shame any display. That they will not be selling these anymore is not only a shame but will also encourage recasting.
One thing in the above statement does bother me:
"I looked in to stepping up production and outsourcing manufacture to China a couple of years ago but was never wholly satisfied that I’d be able to manufacture to the quality and standard I, and our customers, would demand."
This statement is patently untrue. If Gorton had swallowed his pride, used his undeniable intelligence and applied some basic business acumen he could have taken me up on my offer to help him and this whole situation would never have arisen.
I still maintain that I can bang out screen accurate, high quality sonic screwdrivers, cyberman heads, Auton heads, Ood heads and Davros heads for a fraction of the price he is currently shelling out, all day and night if I have to. Everybody wins. Sadly, this was not to be.
