The Importance of the Filmation Deal...

Warning!! The following rant is PURE SPECULATION. Various UNEDUCATED guesses and assumptions will be made.

This whole pursuit of the Filmation rights for 2012 has me thinking... Sure, we ARE getting good stuff out of it like Shadow Weaver, Scorpia, Octavia, Sea Hawk for MOTU Classics. I know Shadow Weaver is on the NU52 MOTU Comics. The Question burning on the back of my head is:

Why would Mattel go out of their way to gain access to these characters?

Think about it. It's not simply to please the hardcore MOTU Fanbase. There MUST BE some other reason. I'm not sure of the details on this deal or on the one made 10 years ago (approximately), but there must be something going on. The one from the last decade gave us a new look for Count Marzo, Shadow Beasts and Evil Seed. 2 out of 3 got figures in MOTUC. I mean there HAD to be a Deal, otherwise, Marzo, Evil Seed, etc. would have been OFF-Limits to Mattel. the same way we didn't have Shadow Weaver and the generic Male wraiths had to be used. This is why I believe there had to be some sort of deal 10 years ago.On the other hand this New Deal gave us a lot more:
Shadow Weaver, Scorpia, Fang Man, Madame Razz, Plundor, Nepthu, Icer, Shokoti, Octavia, Batros, Strong Arm, Sea Hawk, Huntara and possibly others.

What are they Planning?

They HAVE TO BE planning something. The only reason I can think of is: The Movie. I don't know what they are planning, but securing rights to use certain characters (Shadow Weaver, I'm looking at you) could help the Movieverse. I can see some better storytelling if certain characters are available. (Of course, I'm talking about the She-Ra side of the equation, since MOTU has not gotten any worthwhile characters to expand the story)

Is this like past deals that allow Mattel to make these characters into toys in future iterations of MOTU, because they made action figures of them? (As seen with Blade, Saurod and Gwildor)

 This is an interesting question. Mattel's main goal is obviously to sell toys. The whole Media Division thing would benefit from these extra characters to weave their stories and sell more products of whatever MOTU ends up in the future. I have no answer for that, but if so, then that would explain the whole Limited slots available... (and why Nepthu is a wasted slot... You knew I would never skip a chance to crap on Nepthu...)

I wonder if the Voltron deal was what opened the doors for this. In any case it's a good thing that we're getting characters like Weaver, Octavia, Sea Hawk, etc. in Classics/