>>96071227
There's little reason to not at least put some money into some shorts to test things out, and this goes for a lot of different franchises. The only real fear is that they just pocket the money and deliver nothing or that it misrepresents it, but both of these are things within control if you just keep an eye on it.
Pretty much any tabletop game would get at least some leg up by paying some animators to make some five minute "look how cool this shit is" features, but it's still uncommon. Think of how many dudes got into warhammer just from the DOW1 opening alone.