Forging a relationship with WB / Bandai off the back of recent events?

Hey gang,

This is probably a question that MannyF and Mark would be best-placed to answer, although as always I'm eager to hear the input of all you guys! :)

The question I find myself asking is whether there's a way we can harness the events of the past couple of days to our advantage, in terms of forging a relationship with WB and/or Bandai with a view to helping them promote the ThunderCats show with press releases, info, etc.? :)

Unfortunately even though we had nothing to do with the posting up of the leaked photos (and in fact the fact that we personally didn't do it is something I'm very grateful for), my concern is that nevertheless we flag ourselves up to WB & co. as a bit of a dangerous "loose cannon"...

I wouldn't have this concern were it not for the events that occurred when we posted up the movie script - even though Mark tried to use the line of communication that opened up between us and WB legal as a consequence of that, I'm not aware of it having gone anywhere. And, you can't build up a positive working relationship with WB by ****ing them off, which I fear we may have done by not complying with their "cease & desist" promptly. :(

So, I find myself wondering if there's a positive spin we can put on recent events to try and forge a positive relationship with WB and their licensees moving forward? I think we've established that we're the #1 site on the Internet for ThunderCats and given that we all want the new show to succeed it would be good to build a positive relationship with them. My perception of them is that they're not as paranoid about their brand as Mattel are with MOTU, as to date (movie script aside) we've never experienced any of the sort of hassles with them that He-Man.Org has experienced... :)

All of this said, I would hate this site to lose its independence, whereupon we're having to "gag" some of our forum members, like dr_slump. But, I'm asking myself whether in the future this is likely to happen anyway, and whether we should be trying to take proactive steps to try and get the best we can out of the situation? :)

I know that MannyF has contacts with WB that he's always been keen not to reveal because of getting them into trouble, and I'm definitely not asking him to break any confidences - but, given that he has direct experience of this side of things, I'm wondering if he has any insight to share on this topic? :)

Thanks for reading this long post, guys, and look forward to hearing all your thoughts! :)

Take care... :)

To be honest I think we need to wait and see if they come to us. Other than speaking to them at events such as Toy Fair and conventions etc... I don't think there is anything else we can do.

However it would be nice to be able to access their press site. However I tried before and nothing (but then that was in the early days of this site)