Who Do I Want To Be Today? Intellectual Property and the Disney Parks

May the Sherman Brothers forgive me.

It’s a world of lawyers,

’Cause nothing’s free.

It’s our intellec-

-tual property.

There’s not much that we share,

And it’s time you’re aware,

We own Marvel after all!

Chorus:

We own Marvel after all.

We own Marvel after all.

We own Marvel after all.

We own Star Wars too!

It feels like so much energy is buzzing around Disney and Universal Theme Parks right now. In Universal’s case that energy is kinetic: they’re building an ambitious third park in Orlando, the largest they’ve ever attempted— a serious threat to Disney’s Florida resort strategy. And in Disney’s case, the energy is mostly potential in that people are waiting to see what will be their answer to Universal’s expansion.

It will need to be bold and when Universal’s Epic Universe opens in 2025, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and TRON Lightcycle / Run will no longer be shiny and new enough attractions to pose much of a threat to something like the rumored Ministry of Magic attraction that might appear in a new Harry Potter-themed land.

Harry Potter, forever, to Disney, the intellectual property that got away. With subsequent purchases of Lucasfilm, Marvel, and 20th Century Fox; The Mouse seems inclined not to let it happen again.

So, if the game is now about IP (intellectual property) — and since George Lucas and Michael Eisner first decided to build Star Tours in 1989 it has been a slippery slope towards that eventual puddle — what does Disney have in its toy chest today that they might pull out in the future? It’s more complicated than you might think.

Lucasfilm

Few people would deny that Galaxy’s Edge is an overwhelming triumph. Not only are the lands amongst the most immersive ever attempted, the main attraction, Rise of the Resistance, might be the pinnacle of the art form, at least to date. Here’s the good news: Disney owns the Lucasfilm properties outright and can make as many Star Wars-based attractions as they’d like. That’s the easy one.

Marvel

Hold on to your hats, this gets tricky. Disney cannot build a land with the actual word “Marvel” in its name. In the 90s, when Marvel’s fortunes were near their lowest, Universal Studios, having lost the rights to their preferred characters from DC Comics, made a quick deal with the other comic book company that they could name and began building Marvel Super Hero Island at their upcoming Islands of Adventure theme park. The licensing agreement was, to put it mildly, interesting. Here are the relevant high points.

No theme park east of the Mississippi River may use any character, nor any character from the family of characters that surrounds said character, if they are being used in Islands of Adventure. In other words, the attraction featuring X-Men hero Storm would preclude her use as well as Rogue and Professor X. This is why Walt Disney World’s first foray into the Marvel characters is a Guardians of the Galaxy attraction; no connection at all with anything going on at Islands of Adventure. This will keep most A-list Marvel characters from having a significant footprint in the Disney Florida parks, probably forever.

Things are a little easier west of the Mississippi as well as outside of the U.S.; all characters may be licensed to all theme parks; hence the characters currently appearing in Disneyland and Disneyland Paris. Some restrictions are, however, still in play. If the park in question is owned by a company whose name is Disney — no, really, that’s in the licensing deal — it may not have a “Marvel Action Universe” in its park. It seems like the two Avengers Campuses would fly in the face of that agreement, but the net result of the legal wrangling around this is that they are allowable because they don’t use the word “Marvel” anywhere. They’re Avengers parks where a whole bunch of other characters occasionally stop by.

It is interesting to note that Universal had an option early on to expand their superhero license to their park on the other side of the country which would have kicked in a clause that made the west coast restrictions as severe as the east coast ones. It would have been very bad for today’s Disney.

20th Century Fox

We’ll need to break this down into some sub-categories.

Avatar — Disney has purchased worldwide theme park rights to the Avatar franchise from Fox and James Cameron’s Lightspeed Entertainment production company; later the 2019 purchase of 21st Century Fox made that purchase superfluous. Assume that if the Avatar sequel is a hit, parks worldwide will see more of the Na’vi and the mighty Ikran.

X-Men/Deadpool — The characters themselves are now licensed by Marvel/Disney and are restricted in theme parks by the same policies that apply to Marvel characters per the Universal licensing agreement. The change with the Fox purchase is that now these characters can be pulled into the Marvel Cinematic Universe which is an assumed thematic prerequisite to their inclusion in any Avengers-themed land.

The Simpsons — Oh ho! Now here’s an interesting one! It is not public record as to how long the current agreement licensing Springfield’s finest to Universal’s theme parks lasts, but most guesses suggest that it will end around 2028. At that point will anyone want the 40-year-old franchise in their parks? The Universal parks simulator experience itself — in both parks just an overlay on top of Back to the Future: The Ride — will be using equipment almost as old as the Simpsons franchise itself.

It seems unlikely that Universal would renew the contract for the characters even if Disney were to offer such an extension. Let’s face it, they’re already having to pay their competitor for the use of the Marvel characters in Islands of Adventure; paying Disney for even more licensing seems like an awfully tough pill to swallow. Likewise, expect other spookier Fox properties, such as American Horror Story, to disappear from their regular appearance at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights in the future.

Just as unlikely would be Disney building a new Springfield from scratch. The Simpsons’ theme park days are likely numbered.

Alien — One could wonder, out of all the IP that Fox holds, why single this one out? Partially it has to do with the aforementioned Halloween Horror Nights which have pulled from this franchise before. That will likely stop. What is more interesting, though, is that Disney has already tried to use this franchise twice in major attractions!

The first was the Disney’s Hollywood Studios classic The Great Movie Ride which encountered not one, but two Xenomorph audio-animatronics. The second attempt was for the attraction that became known as the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter in Florida’s Magic Kingdom which, seemingly, had begun development without having secured the licensing rights to the Alien franchise. Depending on who tells the story, either Disney couldn’t secure the rights at the time or there was a hard rule in the corporation against creating attractions based on R-rated films, but whichever is true the ride veered away from being a part of that franchise; though it remained an obvious reference point for most guests who experienced it.

It would be an extreme longshot, but Disney has seemed to want to play ball with the Xenomorph a few times already. Now it could be on their own terms.

The Muppets

It is interesting to note that the last full attraction that Disney built for the Muppets, Muppet*Vision 3D — notable as Jim Henson’s final directorial work — was built within a licensing agreement with the Jim Henson Company and since buying the IP in 2004, they have done very little with them in the parks other than a few non-permanent shows and restaurant rethemes. Disney does own the Muppets outright and can incorporate them however they would like at this point.

Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is a famous animated character from the early days of sound animation, notable mostly for his impersonations of Charles Lindburgh and —

Ok, ok, I was just feeling a little sassy, but an IP question having to do with Disney’s most famous character is about to become an issue. In 2024 Mickey’s first film, Steamboat Willie, enters the public domain. While it certainly doesn’t affect Disney’s use of Mickey in the parks, could it allow other theme park companies like Six Flags or Disney’s arch-enemy, Universal, to bring him within their berms?

The answer is, sorta, but not really. The copyright protections being lifted are for that one specific work, Steamboat Willie, and not necessarily for all the characters within. Those characters are generally protected by their continued use and by the trademark laws which tie Mickey’s image clearly to the Walt Disney Company. If another park wanted to show the film Steamboat Willie, Disney couldn’t stop them. They might actually enjoy the promotion. If a park wanted to build an attraction that took guests through the sets and narratives seen in Steamboat Willie, they could probably get away with it, but, as is often said when you’re an underdog, it’s best not to moon the giant; so this seems really unlikely.

This has just scratched the surface of the wealth of IP that Disney now owns. Are there properties that would fascinate you in a theme park: Willow, Futurama, The Shape of Water? The possibilities seem endless!

Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times