By Mark Seavy  

Amid significant shifts in consumer tastes and recent changes in company ownership there has also been an evolution in licensing alliances. 

And while these changes in toy licenses could partly be happenstance or timed for announcement at annual toy fairs in New York, London, and Nuremberg, industry executives are pointing to new management and new strategies as the main drivers. 

As Netflix and Paramount Skydance Corp. continue a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, for example, Warner signed a deal with Mattel for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) franchise, ending a 42-year run with Playmates that was the IP’s original licensee. Playmates showed G.I. Joe and TMNT co-branded action figures at the recent New York Toy Fair that will run through March 2027. Mattel also secured a license for DC toys, replacing an agreement that had been split between McFarlane Toys and Spin Master since 2019.  

Hasbro, meanwhile, parted with The Op (formerly USAopoly), which had been the licensee for co-branded Monopoly board games (Gilmore Girls, AC/DC, Hello Kitty, the Marine Corps, and others) since its founding in 1994. Moving forward, Hasbro is bringing the co-branded Monopoly board games in-house. Hasbro also signed a deal with online casino games developer Evolution for casino and slots titles, including Monopoly Live and Monopoly Big Baller games.  

At the same time, Hasbro landed a new agreement with Warner Bros. for Harry Potter action figures and other products. This deal sees Hasbro replacing Spin Master Corp., which first signed in 2021. Jazwares also replaced Playmates as the licensee for Miraculous: Tales of Lady Bug and Cat Noir-inspired fashion dolls and collectibles, an agreement the latter had held since 2020. 

And, in the end to one of the longest running licensing deals for toys, Schleich Corp. has parted with The Peyo Company’s The Smurfs for which it has produced figurines since 1965. 

“Many of these companies [brand owners] are seeking licensees that have a lot of money,” said Jay Foreman, President of Basic Fun, which signed a new licensing agreement for action figures for Hasbro’s Dungeons & Dragons. “In the case of Paramount, it is seeking to buy Warner Bros. and they want bigger deals associated with bigger names that are capable of putting millions of dollars down for a property.” 

The recent increase in licensing agreement turnover means that many companies are embarking upon new strategies or expanding existing businesses. 

The Op, for example, has been working for much of the past year on plans to replace the revenue from the Monopoly titles, said Brian Greenwald, VP of Marketing. It will further expand a line of family party games that has been led by the card game Flip7. The game launched last year as a standalone product and posted sales of 2.2 million units. It has since added licenses for brands like Liquid Death and the U.S. National Parks. 

For its part, Playmates—which reported that TMNT accounted for 36% of its annual revenue in the first half of 2025 (down from 77% a year earlier)—is launching Paris & Pups figures, interactive plush toys, and playsets based on celebrity Paris Hilton’s pets and the new animated series that premiered on YouTube last September. Playmates is also expanding its offerings for Hasbro’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers franchise, including an eight-inch scale figure of the original product released in 1993.  

Schleich, meanwhile, secured a license for Luca Netz’s Pudgy Penguins, an NFT turned licensed property that will be released as collectible figures with plans for moving the business into print-on-demand, said Kelli Masilun, Director Marketing at Schleich. The company will be able to draw from a portfolio of 8,888 NFTs. Schleich will also introduce its first Christmas ornaments based on its Horse Club animal figures.  

And Spin Master is fielding KPop Demon Hunter figures as well as building off its Hatchimals technology with Hello Kitty (Bloomables), The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (Hatchin’ Yoshi), and Jurassic World (Primal Hatch) versions. Additionally, Spin Master is further expanding its Melissa & Dog brand with a Disney license while weighing making the brand itself available for licensing. 

“The bottom line is they [Warner Bros.] in our case wanted a big company [for TMNT] like Mattel,” said Karl Aaronian, SVP Marketing and Development at Playmates. “It does not mean we will not be back in the Turtles business some day and we have gone through periods before where we had no business [for TMNT] because we gave the property a rest, so it is not that dramatic. Does it free us up to bring in a couple new brands? Yes.” 

In the end, executives at some of the companies that lost licenses conceded they may be better off focusing on their core strengths. 

“We want to be partner of choice for licenses, but we want to play more to our core capabilities,” said Tammy Smitham, VP of Communications at Spin Master. “Dolls and action figures [for Harry Potter] were not necessarily our core and a lot of licensors want to be collaborating with companies where that is their core discipline. We want to work with licenses where we have a chance to be the best and for Harry Potter it probably ran its course for us.”