Disney May Be Next in Line to Buy Warner Bros??

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dadddio

Well-Known Member
Ranch Dressing said:
Heh.

I heard a rumor Disney could be seriously discussing buying DreamWorks animation as we ponder them buying WB.

Wouldn't it be funny if they stuck it to Katzenberg twice? Dreamworks animation has turned into a joke of late, gotta give Eisner some kudos for seeing Katzenberg was a bad leader.
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Didn't Katzenberg receive a payout of 1/4 of a billion dollars when he left Disney?

I wish someone would stick it to me like that.
 
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Cmdr_Crimson

Cmdr_Crimson

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
fosse76 said:
Yes and no. Six Flags (then owned by Bally) purchased the Chicago Great America park only. Marriott had already sold the California park, which is why the Chicago park still had the Looney Tunes license. When they sold the Chicago park, the license for Looney Tunes was transferred to Six Flags. When Warner Bros. purchased Six Flags, they actually forced a Batman theme on B&M's prototype inverted roller coaster at Six Flags Great America (which was going to have a hurricane-based theme). When Premier Parks purchased the parks from WB, they entered a new license agreement with WB to include DC as well. Unlike Universal and Marvel, I don't believe there are too many restricions with their use, and the license was for 50 years.
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What really is sad tho is that the Looney Tunes at my park were really downgraded for the past several years..They even removed our Looney Tunes themed kids area. However they rethemed the Wiggles area to a Generic Kidzopolis section but, we still have the Camp Cartoon Section that's themed to Hanna-Barbera...But, I can say that I enjoyed my years being best friends with the Grey Haired one...And I'll never forget that. :D
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PhilharMagician

PhilharMagician

Well-Known Member
fosse76 said:
That's not even remotely true. For one thing, Geauga Lake was owned by Cedar Fair when it was closed, not Six Flags. Two: lack of themeing does not make an amusement park a permanent carnival with poorly maintained rides. And while I haven't been to all the Six Flags parks, I would never say the rides/games are poorly maintained. I think, operationally, they are making some mistakes and ruining efficiency in the process, but that's a different issue. The real problem is there are too many parks and they are all managed on the whims of each park's president with no major oversight or standards. But again, those are separate issues.
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One, I did not comment on Geauga Lake since I have never been there and I know nothing of it's true history. My comments were focused on the park in my post which is The Great Escape. When it was purchased by Six Flags in 1996. Since that time it themed areas have been mostly stripped and become more generic. Rotten wood and leaking roofs seem to be the norm today and closed rides. Some rides and walkways have clear site to areas with broken down equipment and rotting ride remains from it's recent past. Many times I have overheard in ride queues people talking about to park receiving less than minimum maintenance. This is really a shock to me since Premier has invented tens of millions into their only resort hotel right next to The Great Escape called (of course) The Great Escape Lodge which has it's own indoor water park. IMHO they would dump more money into the park property to help draw more guests.

I have not been to any other park in recent years to comment but have heard some complaints from friends that have visited Great Adventure, New England and Darian Lake. The only consistent theme I have seen would be lack of maintenance. Hopefully this does not carry into their other properties.
 
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xstech25

Well-Known Member
Unlike Disney and Universal where all the work gets done third shift, no Six Flags parks have third shift maintenance staffs anymore, they were cut a long time ago. In short this means they pretty much never have time to fix anything. I don't know how much that matters though because even if they had time they probably wouldn't have a budget to anyway.

This is why if something major breaks on a ride typically you will see the ride closed for several hours to fix it, or sometimes several days (or weeks if the ride is made by Intamin ;) )
 
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doctornick

Well-Known Member
fosse76 said:
Nope. Universal has the world-wide theme park rights to Harry Potter from JK Rowling directly. The license agreement with WB is to use the film designs and likenesses, so they didn't have to start from the ground-up. Marvel as a company owned the theme park rights to Marvel characters, but not the various film identities of the those characters, which is why Universal had to use the comics version (which is fine, in my opinion). So even if by some miracle (or curse) Disney ended up owning Universal, Disney still would not own the theme park rights, because Rowling had retained those rights and WB never owned them.
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Just for amusement sake....

Is the movie likeness for the HP characters perpetual or for a limited time? If it is the latter and Disney bought WB and then did not renew the contract with Comcast/Uni, then theoretically Uni would be able to maintain the HP lands but would need to change them to not include images (and I would think actors) from the films.
 
prberk

prberk

Well-Known Member
doctornick said:
Just for amusement sake....

Is the movie likeness for the HP characters perpetual or for a limited time? If it is the latter and Disney bought WB and then did not renew the contract with Comcast/Uni, then theoretically Uni would be able to maintain the HP lands but would need to change them to not include images (and I would think actors) from the films.
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They would obviously still work out a deal that works for both of them. I don't see this as that different from the way that the working studios operate: they rent and use each other's studios and equipment all the time, and they pay each other to do post-production work all the time. It's all an elaborate business model that actually works most of the time for everyone, including the public, despite the public face of their competition.
 
RSoxNo1

RSoxNo1

Well-Known Member
My understanding is that Harry Potter was something like a 10 year agreement with two 5 year options. I don't know who holds the options (Universal, JK Rowling, Warner Brothers). I'm sure someone on here can fill in the details, but I believe in at least some capacity the agreement is not in perpetuity. What I don't know is whether or not the timeline is only with JKR or if WB has a similar hold on it.
 
Q

Quinnmac000

Well-Known Member
Sometimes, I wonder if people want to get these IPs because they like them or just because they are super popular...I wouldn't want Disney to get any of WB's IP not because I don't want them to have it but
1. They haven't even started breaking ground on the most popular IPs they own in Parks, the formula for Marvel doesn't work with DC comics. DC has always been serious and dark, not light and fun like Marvel.
2. Quality is bound to go down if Disney took over the whole industry. They won't have real competition to push them forward.
3. Do I really want Disney Parks to get even more crowded? I mean people already complain about the crowds, do you want them even more crowded to see Batman or Gandalf?
 
Bparso87

Bparso87

Well-Known Member
Matt_Black said:
O RLY?!?

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Because nothing says "dark and serious" like an anthropomorphic rabbit in bright primary colors.
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Most people think it is dark from the dark knight movies. But marvel is just as dark go read read marvel zombies r a dead pool comic. The only really dark dc comics is anything in the batman family and dc vertigo r any of the justice league dark team like animal man r swamp thing. I forgot 80s and 90s green arrow that was some crazy comics.
 
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ᗩLᘿᑕ ✨ ᗩζᗩᗰ

HOUSE OF MAGIC
Premium Member
I wonder if this isn't merely a ploy from Disney to finally gain movie rights to "Wizard of Oz" and other like properties in a one-off "give us this and you can keep your company" type move. I honestly don't see why Disney would care to buy WB except for a few of their existing movie properties and the merchandising it's created. I don't think Disney would be too interested in the Looney Toons or superhero comics personally.
 
WondersOfLife

WondersOfLife

Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
Unplugged said:
I'm still waiting for the right purchase to come along so we can get some Futurama attraction in Tomorrowland. I was hoping this would take place in time for the TTA refurb so they could simply put tubes everywhere and shoot us around the park.
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I don't think Futurama would be put into a Disney park. It's not alway particularly "family friendly."

And before anyone goes on about "It doesn't have to be family friendly to be put in a theme park!!!!"

.....This is Disney. Not Universal. Adieu.
 

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