#marvel universal

[juan-yl]

[didyouknowmagic]

The Marvel Deal.

So I received an excellent question about what can happen with Marvel in terms of theme parks and Disney. So I am going to be listing what can and cannot occur with the current contracts that are in place. 

Universal 

Universal bought the rights to the Marvel characters back when marvel wasn't doing so hot in the 1990's. So the contract was pretty cheap, and very ironclad. It gave them rights to Avengers, X Men, and Spiderman characters and the Marvel name over in  2 places. Japan and Orlando as both Universal resorts in those locations have Spiderman Attractions. That means that Universal has an exclusive deal that any theme park in those areas cannot have any rights to the characters being used or any characters even within the family of those characters. And it's for perpetuity, so nothing is changing on that front. HOWEVER, they cannot add any new attractions based off any material that Disney has done with marvel since the buyout of 2009. So no avengers ride based off the films, no meet and greet characters that are based off their film counterparts. Everything has to be from the comic books. But even so they get to use Captain America, Wolverine, Spiderman, etc.

Walt Disney World 

Walt Disney World has a sad situation due to everything listed above. Because of it's proximity to Universal Orlando Resort it cannot use any Marvel property that is in Universal's use due to the pre existing contract. So anything that has to do with Avengers, X-men, and any characters that are in the family of those characters are unfortunately off limits here. No Iron man ride, no Avengers ride, no Captain America meet and greets. Nothing of the sort. THAT being said there are loopholes to the existing contract. Things like the Iron Man monorail 

and the Avengers Monorail Wrap 

Were allowed on the technical way of their use. So long as they didn't enter any theme park it wasn't considered an attraction therefore it was fair game. So only the Magic Kingdom Monorail line could have these wraps while the Epcot one could not due to the monorail entering Epcot. 

Another loophole found is using characters that are NOT covered in the Universal deal and making them popular and exploiting that. AHem 

These Aholes ^ How do I know they are totally free from the marvel universal debacle? Well For one that sneak peak was in 3D and in the heart of hollywood studios, meaning it for all considerable reasons could be categorized as an attraction. And since no character from the current contract can do any sort of Meet and Greets at Disneyworld it was strange that this happened.

Guardians Dance party with Gamora and Star Lord meet and greet. Meaning these characters and this franchise is in the Clear and Disney knows it. Another property that is in fair use is Big hero 6 as it is not only distanced from the original Marvel comic but none of the characters are used in the Universal Deal. 

Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland

All Marvel characters and everything else are ALL for fair use in any of the above listed theme parks. So rides, meet and greets, shows whatever it's all good to go at any of these places. Disneyland has several avenger meet and greets already in place, Disneyland Paris has Spiderman meet and greets, HK disneyland is building an iron man ride, and I am sure Shanghai has something in the Works. 

SO that's the basics of the deal. For anyone and everyone asking Why marvel can't happen here, this is pretty much it.