14 LEGO rumours that turned out to be false in 2022

From Spider-Man: No Way Home sets to a surprise Collectible Minifigures series, here are all the LEGO rumours that eventually turned out to be false in 2022.

Proving not every LEGO rumour should be taken as gospel, at least 14 different stories that emerged over the past 12 months ultimately turned out to be unfounded. Whether through crossed wires, delayed products or simply malicious intent on the part of the person sharing it, every single one of these rumours has so far led to nothing. That’s not to say they still couldn’t, of course…

Dive in below, and don’t forget to check out our entire series of articles recapping LEGO in 2022 – including our top 10 LEGO sets, top 10 LEGO minifigures and 10 times the LEGO Group surprised us.

14 – Four different LEGO Collectible Minifigures series  

While 2022 eventually brought us three different Collectible Minifigures series as standard in 2022 – 71032 Series 22, 71033 The Muppets and 71034 Series 23 – rumours all the way back in September 2021 were predicting we’d actually get four separate blind-bagged series this year. Further details in January suggested one of those series, 71035, would contain just six characters, and could be attached to the LEGO Super Mario theme.

We now know that the confusion came from the LEGO Group switching the product numbers for its boxes of six minifigures to follow standard Collectible Minifigures numbering, so 71035 actually ended up being a six-pack of The Muppets minifigures. Easy mistake to make.

13 – A 90th-anniversary LEGO Collectible Minifigures line

Alongside those reports of a six-character series, rumours emerged online that one of the other Collectible Minifigures series in 2022 would tie into the LEGO Group’s 90th anniversary. The internet was instantly ablaze with speculation, as fans dreamed of Classic Space astronauts in countless new colours, the return of more Classic Castle factions and – perhaps somewhere in there – BIONICLE minifigures. (Hey, they’ve happened once before.)

It wasn’t meant to be, however, as 71034 Series 23 ultimately materialised as a mix of vague nods to classic LEGO themes and brand new characters. If there was one theme tying that collection together, it was mascot minifigures, which doesn’t really scream ‘the 90th anniversary of LEGO’.

12 – A second LEGO Marvel Collectible Minifigures series

Perhaps proving that rumours around Collectible Minifigures series are not to be trusted most of all, a third rumour on 2022’s three (or four?!) series suggested one of them would act as a follow-up to 71031 Marvel Studios. This again ended up being the result of confusion around the product numbers filled by the six-packs, which completely broke precedent, so we’re not too surprised to see it didn’t come off. It does illustrate how some rumours are simply just guesswork around product numbers, though.

11 – A Jabba’s Palace gift-with-purchase

Long before Aunt Beru finally debuted in LEGO (some 23 years after LEGO Star Wars first launched), this year’s May the Fourth free gift was rumoured to be a microscale rendition of Jabba’s Palace from Return of the Jedi (or, if you like, The Book of Boba Fett). That was very believable given 2021 brought us 40451 Tatooine Homestead, a slightly different slice of Tatooine represented in miniature, but in the end the LEGO Star Wars team changed direction entirely with 40531 Lars Family Homestead Kitchen.

10 – The proper return of LEGO Stranger Things

While 2022 did bring us one LEGO Stranger Things set in 40549 Demogorgon & Eleven, whispers of a full follow-up to 75810 The Upside Down were roughly as reliable as Vecna during a laboratory escape. These rumours were never that concrete in the first place, but with Season 4 of the Netflix show debuting across May and July, it felt like an inevitability at the beginning of the year. So much for that line of thinking.

9 – A LEGO Ant-Man set

Once upon a time, 76219 Spider-Man & Green Goblin Mech Battle was rumoured to be an Ant-Man set, courtesy of a seemingly ill-informed Italian retailer. DB-line had the price spot on – €19.99 – leading us to speculate that it could be some sort of equivalent to 76206 Iron Man Figure, or perhaps a Giant-Man mech, but ultimately it turned out to have nothing to do with Ant-Man at all. Maybe spiders are a bit like eight-legged ants? Sort of?

8 – The debut of Doctor Fate

LEGO DC had a pretty hard time of things in 2022, with only one truly brand new set arriving on shelves (the four sets released for The Batman arrived in 2021 in the US). That pain was made all the worse for DC fans when rumours of a Tower of Fate set, anchored around Doctor Fate and including Batman (naturally), surfaced in January. Instead, that set turned out to be… 76209 Thor’s Hammer. Pain.

7 – A LEGO Uncharted set

Hot off the heels of rumours of 76989 Horizon Forbidden West: Tallneck – a bona fide set that genuinely exists – came whispers of a second PlayStation partnership, this time with Naughty Dog for LEGO Uncharted. We noted at the time that the source didn’t have much pedigree, and in the end it transpired that this particular rumour had been started by a member of the LEGO Fan Media program with seemingly spiteful intent. Which wasn’t fun for anyone who got their hopes up for LEGO Nate and Sully…

6 –  A $600 LEGO Technic Liebherr

LEGO Technic’s most expensive set to date was rumoured to land in summer 2022, in the form of 42146 Liebherr LR 13000. Based on the world’s most powerful crawler crane, the 2,882-piece model was said to retail for $599.99, suggesting some measure of power functions in the box. It never materialised as expected, but this is one rumour that may still have some grain of truth in it: 42146 Liebherr LR 13000 is now thought to be launching in 2023, with a price tag of €449.99 in Europe.

5 – A whole bunch of LEGO Star Wars rumours

Earlier this year, an Instagram source managed to temporarily fool the entire community with a bunch of fake rumours, supported by images of a new Force ghost piece supposedly coming in the summer 2022 sets. That element was faked too – though it even caught the attention of the LEGO Star Wars designers – and ultimately went in the bin, along with reports of a Yavin IV base set, a Kaminoan mini-doll and a drum-lacquered gold C-3PO minifigure.

4 – A LEGO Museum of Modern Art set

While some rumours eventually turn out to be false to some degree, there’s often at least an element of reality in them. So it was with the rumoured LEGO Art set created in conjunction with the Museum of Modern Art in New York: while 31207 Floral Art has little connection to the museum, the LEGO Group was actually working with the institution for 21333 Vincent van Gogh – The Starry Night, an Art-like LEGO Ideas set.

3 – Details on 76210 Hulkbuster and 76215 Black Panther

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While the rumour mill was on the money with the subject matter for this year’s two biggest LEGO Marvel sets, 76210 Hulkbuster and 76215 Black Panther, the finer details were less clear cut. Right up until the reveal of the Black Panther bust, common thinking was that the Hulkbuster would retail for $300 and include roughly 2,500 pieces. Presumably because nobody could have predicted we’d get a 4,049-piece Hulkbuster… 

2 – A new Ahsoka minifigure

Rumoured details on 75331 The Razor Crest first emerged in July, and in the days and weeks that followed the finer points of the Ultimate Collector Series began to trickle out – some true, others false. One that had zero basis in reality was the inclusion of a new Ahsoka Tano minifigure, based on the character’s appearance in The Mandalorian. We’re still waiting on that minifigure, but with the live-action Star Wars: Ahsoka series on the horizon, it surely won’t be too long now.

1 – More LEGO Spider-Man: No Way Home sets

Presumably due to the secrecy surrounding the film up to release, just one of the three LEGO sets released for Spider-Man: No Way Home actually had anything to do with the movie (and even then, its antagonist was a work of pure fiction). So it came as little surprise when rumours suggested more sets would follow in 2022 – but those models have somehow yet to materialise, even with a longlist of classic Spider-Man characters just waiting to be recreated as minifigures. (And three Spideys, lest we forget.) Fingers crossed they’re on the way in 2023 instead.

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