<P> In the late 1990s, the Lego Group brought out a series of new and specialized ranges aimed at particular demographics . The Slizers / Throwbots line preceded the Bionicle range, and uses Technic pieces and specialist moldings to create a set of action figures for boys, while Belville is a more conventional line aimed at girls and featuring large posable figures like those in the Technic range . A "Lego 4 Juniors" group features 2 - inch (51 mm) tall medium - sized figures ("medi - figure") without jointed arms, and longer legs than the classic Lego minifigure . In 2003, the Lego Group introduced a completely new system, Clikits, aimed at girls and consisting of customizable plastic jewelry and accessories . In 2004, Lego added the QUATRO brick, for ages 1--3 . Much like Duplo, a Quatro brick is four times the dimension of a regular Lego brick, and is compatible with the Duplo brick . Also that year, they created the second line of Knights Kingdom themed product . </P> <P> Lego's profits had declined since 1992, and in 1998 it posted its first ever loss, at £ 23 million . In the same year the company laid off 1000 employees . </P> <P> In 1999, the first Lego products featuring licensed characters, i.e. not designed in - house, were Lego Star Wars and Winnie the Pooh Duplo, followed in 2000 by Lego Harry Potter characters to figures from other Steven Spielberg movies . Soren Holm, the head of Lego Concept Lab said toy weapons had always been heavily debated, but that since the Lego Star Wars release Lego has grown "more comfortable with conflict". Mr Laursen, executive North American operations suggested to make "violence not explicit, but humoristic ." After 1999 a number of in - house characters were strongly characterised with media utilisation and non-Lego System merchandising, most notably Bionicle from 2001--2010 and then again in 2016 . </P> <P> In 2004, Lego posted a loss of £ 174 million, with executive vice-president of marketing Mads Nipper later describing the company as having been "almost bankrupt" at this point . He analysed in retrospect that "we continued to invest as if the company were growing strongly . We failed to realise that we were on a slippery path.... Children were getting less and less time to play . Some of the western markets had fewer and fewer children . So play trends changed, and we failed to change . We were not making toys that were sufficiently interesting to children . We failed to innovate enough . And we had nowhere cut deep enough to right - size the company". </P>

When did lego first begin licensing characters from movie and tv shows for lego sets