Hi all,
what's the deal with the licencing issues with actors? Why don't they allow thier likeness to be modelled. If someone wanted to make me into a model/toy i'd be flattered. Are they money hungy or just prima donnas? I know Sigorny allowed Geometric to use her likeness providing the model had no gun, this was in '96 or something, so why is she not allowing ss to use her likeness now? Wierd.
There are many variables.
ALIENS and many older films were made in an era when merchandising wasn't really a consideration, George Lucas was really a loner for a long time with Star Wars in having the foresight to understand the power of merchandising and covere these things.
So when a company like Sideshow acquires rights from Fox to make Aliens collectibles, that only covers characters, creatures and things like that, but actor/actress likenesses are not covered, and those would require extra money and effort to obtain.
Example, Hot Toys had the rights to make a Dutch figure from Predator, but had to separately secure rights with Arnold Schwarzenegger's rights holders for the likeness because it's not part of the Predator license. Hot Toys didn't pursue rights to Sonny Landham's portrait for Billy.
I'm sure oftentimes, the actors aren't even aware of these things being made, that in some cases, the company is find producing generic, close enough portraits. Other times, I'm sure they may be approached, and just decline or want too much.
Carl Weather's can be very pick with his likeness, he forced JAKKS to change the heads on all of their Apollo Creed figures and denied Stallone rights to use Apollo images in Rocky Balboa because they wouldn't meet his demands.
Some folks just don't want their faces capture that way, some don't believe in the products, some are very particular about how they have to look (Hot Toys's Dutch portrait saw several iterations before a final one was approved by Arnold's people, Christian Bale and McG had to personally approve the John Connor sculpt), some folks want such high demands to use their likeness that it'd make the balanced cost of the piece to high to even sell.
Most of the time, this is a non issue, most folks are pretty much locked into an agreement when they sign on with a film or TV series to have their image used because we live in a marketing age. Gary Oldman is the only actor I'm familiar with that isn't covered in contract even in modern films like The Dark Knight.
Most of the times you find likeness issues are properties from the early 90s and older because it wasn't until about 1992 that merchandising really started to take off, like for Terminator 2, they were smart enough and secured rights so anyone with a T2 license can make stuff look just like Arnold or Linda Hamilton or Robert Patrick.
