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Marvel characters to transform into Hasbro toys

By Times Staff
Published January 10, 2006

Hasbro Inc., the world's second-largest toymaker, won the rights to sell toys based on more than 5,000 Marvel Entertainment Inc. characters, including Spider-Man and X-Men.

The five-year deal allows Hasbro to sell action figures, puzzles and games next year starting with the release of the films Spider-Man 3 and Ghost Rider. Marvel will receive $205-million in the accord, Hasbro of Pawtucket, R.I., said Monday.

Sales at Hasbro have fallen in four of the past six quarters as consumers turned away from traditional toys. The agreement will give Hasbro new lines of merchandise after it has relied on Star Wars action figures to boost sales. While Hasbro has the rights to Star Wars toys through 2018, the final movie in the series was released last year.

"It's a tremendous partnership that comes absolutely at the right time for both companies," said Brian Goldner, president of Hasbro's U.S. toy division. "As Star Wars makes a transition to be a television show, we see a great opportunity to partner with Marvel and their movie-based products."

Honda drives away with top car, truck honors

Two Honda vehicles - the Civic sedan and the Ridgeline pickup - were chosen as the car and truck of the year at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

The awards were presented Sunday, the first day of media previews for the show.

It's the first time in the award's 12-year history that both winners were from the same automaker. The winners were chosen by a group of 49 full-time automotive journalists from the United States and Canada. Finalists had to be new or substantially redesigned from the previous model. More than 50 cars and trucks were eligible for the 2006 award.

Honda officials said the awards were the culmination of years of hard work.

"You can't believe how much work went into reviving the Civic," said Dick Colliver, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co.

This is the second major award bestowed on the Civic and the Ridgeline. Late last year, Motor Trend magazine named the Ridgeline its truck of the year and named the Civic its car of the year.

Other chatter

KENNEDY, KIDS' PUBLISHER TEAM UP: Sen. Edward Kennedy and children's publisher Scholastic Corp. will issue an illustrated book about a typical day in his life as told by Splash, his Portuguese water dog.

Kennedy will donate the book's proceeds to charities, including Read Boston, a literacy group in his home state of Massachusetts, New York-based Scholastic said in Monday. The 56-page book will be issued in May, according to Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter series.

The book underscores the trend among publishers of signing celebrities to pen children's books with the goal of spurring sales. Politicians and television stars ranging from former New York City mayor Ed Koch to Today co-anchor Katie Couric have put their names on picture books during the past two years.

Kennedy's book, My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington, D.C., aims to explain how a bill becomes a law and will include biographies of Kennedy and Splash, Scholastic said.

--Information from Bloomberg News and the Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified January 10, 2006, 01:51:15]