In 2014, one of the very first successful Lego Ideas projects was the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 seen in the featured image. To follow it up, Lego went on a bit of a spree of licensing other spooky properties. With all of them, though, it left a lot of potential sets on the table. The grandest (and the one I most regret not buying) in this category is the Ghostbusters Firehouse, released in 2016 to coincide with the Paul Feig movie.

A couple other takes on the Ecto-1 at various scales have come out since then, but no other Ghostbusters sets. No NY Public Library, no Spook Central apartment, not even a life-sized ghost trap.

A huge number of IPs were licensed specifically for the ill-fated Toys-to-Life video game project Lego Dimensions in 2015, including Gremlins and Beetlejuice, which to this day have had no further Lego representation. These minifigures go for a lot of money on the aftermarket even though the game they belong to is long since defunct.

In 2019, Lego released a one-off Stranger Things set based on the Byers’ house in season 1. Its vertically symmetrical building technique is a really well-done gimmick. Other than a couple BrickHeadz sets and an SDCC-Exclusive Barb minfigure, though, there’s been nothing else.

Finally, a true oddball IP that I’m really disappointed never went anywhere is the Universal Monsters license that was secured for a single Brickheadz set of Frankenstein’s Monster in 2020. Rendered faithfully in shades of grey so that he resembles the film, this is the first time that Lego bothered to get the blessing of Universal for their takes on the Classic Monsters rather than simply filing the serial numbers off. I’d love to see more, even if they’re just in Brickheadz form, but Frank was the only one they ever did.

There have been a few other spooky licensed sets, but they all fall under one broad umbrella that we’ll cover in another thread.