If Disney decided to sever the contract for cause, say, if USF failed some vague minimum level of upkeep, I'm betting there would be a VERY expensive and drawn out legal battle, during which Disney still wouldn't be able to touch the characters.
Agree.
The "same family" clauses can be pretty vague unless each is spelled out. There is so much crossover in comics that it could potentially cover every single character. But if you read the WHOLE section, MCA must have used the character in more than an incidental way.
That filing doesn't mention any specific characters. And it appears to say that they can add characters, and the exclusivity clauses will apply.
IV (B) (1) states that the list of characters is included in an addendum. The specific mention of "Avengers" doesn't necessarily mean they have carte blanche to every character which has appeared in an Avengers comic, but I'm sure it's quite a liberal list.
Section IV (B) (1) (a) establishes MCA's exclusivity. Essentially it states that MCA had two years in order to secure character exclusivity for USF
and additional exclusivity for other parks.
Section IV (B) (1) (a) (1) (i) (begins "East of Mississippi...") gives USF two years in order to integrate character families and lock in those rights. It states that "any other theme park is limited to using characters not currently being used by MCA at the time such other license is granted." In other words, if MCA didn't establish use of a character "family" at IoA within those two years, Marvel could license the character elsewhere. MCA/USF/IoA loses the exclusivity to additional characters after the two years.
The West of Mississippi and international options were also bound by the 2 year clause. Lack of action on MCA's part means they presumably lost the exclusivity. There's also mention of a 5-year extension on the exclusivity but with Islands of Adventure opening in 1999, those rights would have expired several years ago if they were even pursued by MCA.
Other interesting bits...
...if US decides to create another Marvel place at another park, they automatically get exclusivity across the U.S. And if they build one at any of a number of other countries, the exclusivity applies across all of them.
Again the 2+5 year exclusivity terms applied so that's off the table now.
...if someone else uses Marvel properties, they cannot promote it with the word Marvel. And if any of the characters MCA used are used west of the Mississippi, then it can't be promoted east of the Mississippi.
Read further and it does say that it can be promoted as part of national TV ads, magazines, brochures, etc. The other licensee just needs to make clear where the character presence is located. In other words, if Disney aired a generic "Disney Parks" commercial promoting a Spider-Man attraction at
Disneyland, it would have to be clear that the attraction was at DL and not WDW. Fine print would probably be sufficient.
And I don't see anything about if Disney used, say, Doctor Strange, that Universal couldn't then usurp it, but I could have missed it. But it seems to be written to make it very difficult for anyone else to use them at all.
Depends upon whether or not he was included in any of the character families outlined in the addendum. Thor and Iron Man would certainly be part of Avengers so I guess they are off limits for WDW. I'm not enough of a comic devotee to know whether Doctor Strange could have fallen under Avengers, too.
In reading this information, its impossible to ignore how much Disney is likely earning without building a single thing. The Pleasure Island analogy is perfect. Marvel/Disney is earning licensing fees, royalties from merchandise and food sales, inclusion in national advertising, guaranteed ad buys in Marvel publications...and all of it is subject to CPI increases over the life of the contract. It's hard to assign much context without real numbers, though.
The assumption has always been that Disney would rush to extricate itself from the Universal contract so that it could use the characters in its own parks. But when you consider all of the intellectual property Disney knowingly chooses to NOT use, they may be just fine with these agreements. It's a steady stream of revenue...from the competition, no less...and Disney doesn't have to do a thing to earn it.
