The SEC filing is not the final contract. That hasn't been made public.
Source?
Character license agreements have to have expiration dates and renew dates. This is because of the changing value of the characters. Marvel is probably worth twice as much as Islands of Adventure now.
No, they don't "have to have" expiration dates.
When you enter into an agreement like this, both parties are assuming some risk. If the Marvel films had not been such a success, the property would be worth much less and Universal would be on the hook for whatever they agreed to a decade ago.
Universal would have been incredibly foolish to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into a Marvel Land if there was a chance the deal would expire in just 10-15 years. US would have left themselves in a terrible bargaining position regardless of the Marvel value change. Under those conditions Marvel could demand double or triple the fees, knowing that Universal's only other option is to re-theme 20% of their park including one of its signature attractions.
I cited the MiceAge review of Transformers as the reason for the change out. Why would Universal have exactly the same ride at either Islands or the Studios?
For the same reason that Indiana Jones at
Disneyland and Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom are exactly the same ride--it saves money. As I said in my prior post, theme park attractions aren't
LEGO kits or Rollercoaster Tycoon inventions where you just swap out one piece for another. Millions of dollars worth of engineering, parts fabrication, testing, etc. goes into these attractions. Making a virtual replica of an attraction is much, MUCH cheaper than starting fresh--even if the tech is similar.
Spielberg has implied that Transformers is coming to Florida.
Even if true (many people have called his comments into question), there is no guarantee that it would be either:
1) The same attraction they are building in Hollywood, or
2) A replacement for Spider-Man
Universal just invested millions to update Spider-Man. There is absolutely no reason to do that if the attraction is being replaced in the near future.
My guess is that the Marvel Island will be transformed into Transformers or Sci Fi after Universal expands Harry Potter into the Studio park. My guess is within 5 years. This is how long Spielberg has left on his theme park contract. Jim Hill last year guessed that Marvel would be gone from Universal within 6 years. I don't know if he had information about an expiration date or if it was just a guess. Why would Universal want to keep Marvel, just to get back at Disney? They're already paying Disney a Lot in royalties. Plus, Disney is not going to let them add an Avengers ride or anything else.
Jim Hill (and others) observed that Disney may try to buy its way out of the deal. That is always possible but it would NOT be cheap.
Why would Universal want to keep Marvel? Because they've invested hundreds-of-millions to add the property to the park. And because it's a popular franchise now. Who cares if they are paying royalties to Disney? Universal is getting exactly what they hoped to get from the deal.
In a prior post you said that the talk of a perpetual licensing agreement was merely "hype" spread by Universal execs. If there is any truth to that, why wouldn't Disney debunk the myth? All Bob Iger has to do is confirm that the Universal deal runs through 20xx, and the topic is immediately put to rest.
I appreciate your enthusiasm but you're grasping at straws here.
