Five figures have been announced for December 2026. They are not the first ones based on the movie, but they are the first in eleven years, and more importantly, the two characters fans can quote from memory had never received figures of their own. The wave also includes a duplicate that is not quite a duplicate.
$20 million budget, $168 million gross
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was Rawson Marshall Thurber's first feature film, released on June 18, 2004. A $20 million budget, $168 million worldwide. Those numbers alone explain why the license periodically comes back around.
The setup is a deliberate underdog-movie classic. Peter La Fleur runs Average Joe's, an unambitious gym full of misfit clients, and learns it will be foreclosed unless he can raise $50,000 in thirty days. So he puts together a dodgeball team for a Las Vegas tournament whose prize money happens to match the exact amount. Across the street, White Goodman, owner of Globo Gym, assembles a team of professionals to crush him.
What gave the movie staying power was not the plot. It was the lines. The five Ds of dodgeball, the wrench training, and a parade of cameos that still hold up twenty years later, from Lance Armstrong to Chuck Norris to David Hasselhoff.
And the two characters responsible for nearly all of those lines are finally entering the catalog.
Patches O'Houlihan is the one we were waiting for – POP #1816
The elderly wheelchair-bound coach played by Rip Torn is the reason this wave exists.
He is the one who teaches the team dodgeball by throwing wrenches at their faces, on the principle that if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. He is the one who lays out the five Ds, the sport's survival rules: dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge. And he is the one who dies the night before the final, crushed by a casino sign falling from the sky, in one of the movie's most brutal and committed jokes.
His memory even returns at the end: Peter La Fleur thinks of him as he makes the blindfolded throw that wins the tournament.
In a comedy, the figure that matters is the one that makes you hear a quote in your head. Patches O'Houlihan is exactly that figure, and this is his first ever.
Steve the Pirate, the other first – POP #1817
Same logic, different register.
Alan Tudyk plays a man who genuinely believes he is a pirate. Not a pirate fan, not a cosplayer: a pirate. The movie never explains it and never really mocks him for it either, which is exactly what makes the character funny.
His arc is also the only genuinely emotional moment in the film. Humiliated, he drops the persona and leaves the team before returning when it matters. Twenty-two years later, it is still the role people imitate at parties, and the one that helped launch an entire career of memorable supporting roles.
He had never had a figure either.
Two White Goodmans for one Peter La Fleur
The rest of the wave is more curious, and worth reading carefully.
- Peter La Fleur – POP #1814: the owner of Average Joe's, played by Vince Vaughn. The character had already received a figure in the very first Dodgeball wave released in 2015, which is now retired.
- White Goodman – POP #1815: the owner of Globo Gym, in a standard version. He also existed back in 2015, and as with Peter, the older release is no longer in production.
- White Goodman – POP #1818: a second version of the same character, announced through the Specialty Series channel for specialist retailers. Funko has not yet revealed what distinguishes this variant from the previous one.
The choice becomes amusing when you look back eleven years. In 2015, Funko released exactly two figures: the hero and the villain. In 2026, it is releasing the villain twice. Ben Stiller therefore gets two of the five slots in a movie where he is not even the lead character.
Why now? A sequel that does not exist yet
It is a fair question, since nothing is currently being released for this license.
Dodgeball 2 has officially been in development at 20th Century Studios since April 2023. Vince Vaughn is confirmed to return, Jordan VanDina is writing the screenplay, and that is about it: no director attached, no shoot, no release date. Vaughn himself, asked about it in May 2025, described the idea as pretty good but nothing certain.
In other words, the license is warming up before a possible main event. For once, that actually works in the collector's favor: the two older releases are retired, and this wave puts them back into circulation while also filling two glaring gaps.
My take on this release
Patches O'Houlihan, without the slightest hesitation.
He is the character who carries the movie, the one whose rules people still quote, and his figure is arriving twenty-two years after release. In a comedy, what matters is not billing order but how much space a character occupies in memory, and by that standard Patches beats Peter La Fleur easily. An alcoholic wheelchair-bound coach killing the mood by reciting five verbs is better than a nice-guy hero.
Steve the Pirate comes right behind, for the same reasons and with one bonus: he is the only truly distinctive design in the set. The other four are men in sportswear. He is a pirate in a gym, and shelves need that kind of thing.
Peter La Fleur makes sense if you do not own the 2015 version, which is likely: the older release is retired and no longer easy to find. So this is less a duplicate than a second chance.
As for the two White Goodmans, I would wait. Until Funko reveals what separates #1818 from #1815, buying both blind is the worst way to spend your budget on a five-piece wave. Look at the images when they are released, choose one, and keep in mind that the Specialty Series version will go through a distribution channel that is less convenient in France.
The real omission, finally: Cotton McKnight and Pepper Brooks, the two tournament commentators played by Gary Cole and Jason Bateman. A large share of the movie's best lines come from their booth, and they are the duo almost any fan would put in their top three choices. Releasing a Dodgeball line without the commentary desk is like airing the match with the sound turned off. Kate Veatch is missing too, but less painfully. Pre-orders are open, with release scheduled for December 2026.
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