Will We Ever See Our NECA TMNT Loot Crate Figures?!?

If you ordered the NECA TMNT Loot Crate sets back in early 2021 and wondering whats going on with them, well you aren't alone.

So before we get to the present situation, lets first recap how we got here. Back in 2019 the original Loot Crate subscription box service company declared bankruptcy and was sold to Joel Weinshanker who is also a principle of the National Entertainment Collectibles Association Inc. (NECA). At that point the original Loot Crate Acquisition LLC became The Loot Company.

While technically NECA and The Loot Company are two separate companies, they both seemingly have a close connection with one another starting in 2019 with Weinshanker now having ownership in both. It was at that time we started seeing many NECA based products being offered with many of the Loot Crate boxes including several Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Batman figures.

Then in early 2021 Loot Crate offered the following TMNT sets with NECA action figures for pre-order.

Crate 1 movie-themed and comes with a NECA exclusive Danny Pennington figure.

Crate 2 arcade-themed and comes with a NECA exclusive Armaggon figure.

Crate 3 is themed after the comic books and includes a menacing Mutant Shredder exclusive figure.

Crate 4 will be themed after the cartoons with an exclusive Donatello the Dark Turtle figure.

If you Ordered all 4 then you also were to get a NECA Scrag bonus figure from the cartoon.

The cost of each crate was $49.99 and all four crates with bonus figure which included basic shipping was $219.96. Originally crate 1 was supposed to ship in August, Crate 2 in September, Crate 3 in October and Crate 4 in November.

Now understandably with COVID and all the shipping port delays that followed, things did not ship out as planned. At this time the only figure to ship out at all to people has been the first Crate with the Danny Pennington figure which went out people in November 2021.

Back in January Loot Crate put out a tweet saying Crates 2 and 3 had arrived in the US and would be shipping out early to mid February.

🚨#TURTLETUESDAY UPDATE🚨
Hey there #TMNT fans! We know you've been waiting patiently on updates regarding the Turtle Crates. We've received notice that all of the items for crate 2 and 3 have arrived in warehouse and BOTH should be expected to arrive early-mid February! pic.twitter.com/YVYZCv1HhK

— Loot Crate (@lootcrate) January 25, 2022

On a shipping schedule page they have up they then listed Crates 2 and 3 with March shipping dates. And since then there has been no word on these from either Loot Crate or NECA. Well it looks like someone through Club NECA may have responded where they seem to be trying to distance themselves from Loot Crate by saying they are a separate company and therefore don't have any information.

Seen this on Facebook today..... pic.twitter.com/irbaE5XRh7

— American Nerd (@Ecmagee1984) April 8, 2022

On April 1 I sent an email to the Lootcrate PR person who in the past sent out press releases about Loot Crate products seeing if I could get an update, but never heard back.

I haven't tried emailing NECA directly yet because I have never found them to be terribly responsive that way, but I did post a tweet the other day tagging both NECA and Loot Crate asking for an update on these TMNT crates. Knowing how often NECA monitors their Twitter feed I figured that was the best chance of getting any response from them, but at this time there has been no response.

Hey @NECA_TOYS and @lootcrate being your last update back in Jan suggested these #TMNT should start shipping in FEB and its now April, I think we deserve and UPDATE!!!!! pic.twitter.com/0qc6r9y1HO

— ToyNewsi (@JayCochran) April 11, 2022

However I did get a response from Grim Inc. who gave me a heads up about a lawsuit that apparently is going on between the original owner of Loot Crate and the current one. Word of this law suit was originally reported back in February by Law360.

Thanks to @RetroKnight75 we can now view the full article about the lawsuit going on with Lootcrate. I think things are starting to make more sense. Will we ever get our crates? pic.twitter.com/4JYzWkHYGK

— R (@Reikunzero) April 8, 2022

Now it's not clear if this lawsuit has any baring on why Loot Crate isn't shipping out the TMNT crates and I don't know if other crates they offer have also been delayed or not. That however seems to be the going assumption with many who pre-order the Turtle crates. Now it makes sense that these companies wouldn't publicly comment on an active lawsuit like this for legal reasons, however IF the lawsuit is the reason for the current delays, that is something that could possibly drag out for months or even years. Its hard to imagine they are going to run silent about the status of products and when or if they will ship out to people until their legal matters are cleared up. I also don't know if anyone has requested their crates be canceled at this point and if they have, where those requests ignored? When or if we hear more on this we will be sure to update you here.