The movie was released and it grossed around 60 million (61.3 to be precise) and well, considering that MLP didn´t appear in the big screens since the 1980s, this is a huge feat.
Nonetheless, would this production make all these characters popular? Not exactly. In fact, teyo were introduced pretty late in order to cause an influence among the fanbase. Many new characters were introduced at once, with a pretty fast pace and not much time was left for them to shine on their own.
So, considering the short amount of time and the speculations that were around this movie, while many enjoyed this movie and saw them several times at the cinemas, it didn´t cause that huge legacy...mostly because the fad was over.
Sure, Silverstream would be integrated as one of the students in the next two seasons but unlike the kirins, this species wasn´t new. There were several factors why they haven´t managed to impact all that much:
-The fanbase had shrunk since 2016 and the hope for the movie trying to reunite the old fans was not a successful attempt - The lack of promotion coming from Hasbro, relying too much on the word of mouth - The short amount of time for the new characters. Only Tempest managed to domain the popularity polls and thus, ended up being the fan favorite of the bunch. -This species was fresh but still old. People were used to seeing seaponies, just not in this form. So technically, you are seeing the same old same but with a new perspective. So they weren´t all that exciting because the fans were already familiar with the seaponies despite not seeing them before in the show.
Were they actually fanservice or just another marketing plan coming from Hasbro? While this time around, the toys were properly designed and not just as bath toys, were fans actually all that prepared/willing to get this new version?
