The dark side of the Force is strong in certain places — the cave on Dagobah, Exegol, and now, a small office park just outside Charlotte, North Carolina.
Premium Collectibles Studio (PCS), purveyor of stunning statues and busts for pop culture’s biggest franchises, is taking its first steps into the larger world of Star Wars. Its first release in collaboration with Lucasfilm Ltd., available at 12 p.m. EST/9 a.m. PST for preorder today, is a celebration of Darth Maul, designed and art directed by sculptors of extraordinary talent.
StarWars.com recently sat down with Anthony Adams, PCS CEO and creative director, to discuss the full reveal of the new item.
“When we started talking about doing Star Wars, all of us said, ‘Let's do Maul first,’” Adams says. The release also coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Sith Lord’s first appearance in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. “The timing is just perfect. We want to come out and make a statement. We want to do something really special. And we felt like Maul was a good kind of jumping off point to start off with.”
There will be three Maul versions for fans to choose from: classic Maul based on his reveal in the Naboo hangar in The Phantom Menace (“I was like, ‘We HAVE to do that pose,’” Adams says), a shirtless “training” Maul drawn from animation and comics appearances, and a version exclusive to the PCS online store, which features swappable torsos of the classic and training editions, along with a bust stand inspired by the Sith Lord’s lightsaber. The variants both feature other exquisite details, like small sculpted scenes from The Phantom Menace gracing the display base, and will measure at 1:3 scale, or roughly 24 inches tall.
“The thing for us is, we wanted to be different besides just the scale,” Adams says. “There's not a third-scale Star Wars collectible figure out; there's other scales, but not third-scale. We wanted to come out the gate banging. We wanted something really hot.” Adams envisioned the lightsaber bust as a way of moving beyond a standard bust block, and all versions have something of a secret weapon: light-up lightsabers and a light-up base.
For Adams, packing in detail, features, and even a degree of interactivity is key to what makes PCS stand out. “We are big on added value,” he says. “We're all collectors as well here, right? So, when I take a step back and think about how we're going to do a statue or a design, the thing in the back of my head is always what I collect, what I buy. And that's kind of the mindset that I bring. We want something that people are proud of and want to display.”
When StarWars.com visited PCS headquarters, Maul was still in prototype form and just ready to be painted. But the attention to detail was already apparent, from the character's likeness to the look of the Sith’s layered tunic. “These are pieces of art,” Adams says, “and we need to be able to bring that artistic flare to every piece that we do.”
Securing the Star Wars license, Adams says, has been one of the high points since he purchased PCS in 2017. “It felt great,” he says. “Star Wars was my grail. That's the one I've always wanted.”
