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There it is, what “A Court of Thorns and Roses” fans have been looking for: the next wave of Funko Pop! figurines based on Sarah J. Maas’s immensely popular fantasy novel franchise, including the debut of characters
Cassian, Azriel, Morrigan and Amren.
Available at Target in stores and online starting today, Nov. 4, this batch of “ACOTAR” collectibles also marks the launch of a new product overall for Funko, the Bitty POP! Books set, which will feature Funko’s miniature-scale figures alongside detailed book-inspired boxes. The first two releases in the Bitty Pop! Books collection are based on Maas’ “A Court of Thorns and Roses” and its sequel ,”A Court of Mist and Fury,” and were created in collaboration with Maas’ licensing agency, IMG Licensing.
Per Funko, “The Bitty POP! Books A Court of Thorns and Roses set includes a Bitty POP! Town Spring Court Manor, Bitty POP! collectibles of Feyre – Solstice, Rhysand with Wings, Tamlin, and Lucien; while the Bitty POP! Books A Court of Mist and Fury set includes a Bitty POP! Town Moonstone Palace, Bitty POP! collectibles of Cassian, Azriel, Morrigan, and Amren. Each set also comes packaged in a book-themed collectible box and includes a Prythian-shaped figural bookmark.”
The new Funko launch comes on the heels of massive success for its first round of “ACOTAR” products, which debuted in September ahead of the Oct. 27 release of Maas’ sixth book in the series, “A Court of Splintered Harmony.” As previously reported by Variety, that book sold 1.7 million copies in its first 24 hours of release.
“So far we’ve been really excited about the [‘ACOTAR’ Funko] sales results overall,” Funko CEO Josh Simon tells Variety. “Since it launched at the beginning of September, it’s been the number one license in first-time customer purchases on our DTC site. So if you look at the universe of what we’re selling and what’s bringing in new customers and fans, the number one product bringing in new fans is coming from ‘ACOTAR.'”
According to Simon, three out of four of those customers purchasing from the “ACOTAR” Funko line are women.
The appetite for the “ACOTAR” merch has been staggering and the products themselves are a unique case study for Funko, Simon says.
“Historically, there hasn’t been much of a fan or merchandise portfolio of products that are based on books until usually a character is brought to life in the world of a film or TV adaptation,” the Funko chief says. “It’s pretty rare for a book series to get its own collectibles line at all, and I would say almost unprecedented before a screen adaptation. I went back and looked and even at the time, despite how popular clearly Harry Potter was as such a publishing phenomenon, I think a lot of the merchandise and certainly what we did across Funko didn’t really come to life until the Warner Bros. films came out into the world.”
Simon says the difference with “ACOTAR,” which does not currently have a TV or film adaptation in the works after a previous project was scrapped at Hulu, has been Maas’ willingness to let Funko play with the “fun stylized” look of the book characters.
“We worked directly with her and the whole team around deciding for the first time what characters who really only existed in their imaginations would actually look like,” Simon says. “So we definitely get a lot of feedback and do rounds of designs and revisions. Our teams are fans of these things, and so they come to the table with a lot of ideas and, trust me, just as much respect for the underlying source material. I think they don’t want to be disappointed themselves, as fans, beyond just people who work for Funko, as well.”
Simon says that means long conversations were had about every “ACOTAR” Funko product, including that divisive “Under the Mountain” look for “A Court of Thorns and Roses” protagonist Feyre Archeron (pictured above).
“The interesting thing is we see elements of that across almost every fandom, and those are the things I’m most excited about,” Simon says. “I think that’s kind of the fun of the products that we make and working in this world. The same way people are debating on a plot point when the book comes out, they debate what we do as well. So it comes with the territory.”
Written by Maas, the “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series currently consists of six books, with the seventh, “A Court of Fractured Melody,” slated for a January 2027 release. Beginning with today’s launch of the “A Court of Mist and Fury” characters, Simon says Funko will be unveiling products based on all the current books and the upcoming seventh title, as well. But you are not getting any spoilers out of Simon regarding those closely guarded plot points.
“The short answer is, yes. We definitely have more lines planned for Books 6 and 7,” Simon says. “I can’t say what, but we do have more planned. We have a long history of trust that we’ve built up across the entertainment community. Typically we are working with studios a couple years in advance of something coming out. I’m going to jinx ourselves, but obviously we have a lot of internal tools and systems in place to really maintain a level of confidentiality. And over time, when you look at the number of Pops that we create or products in general in a given year, and the breadth of entertainment IP and other genres that we focus on, that level of secrecy, spoilers and security is obviously of the utmost importance to us. And it’s a natural translation into the world of publishing that we thankfully we have systems in place that give people a little bit more trust in us and our reputation.”
See below for first-look images of Funko’s new “A Court of Thorns and Roses” and “A Court of Mist and Fury” Bitty Pop! Book sets.
