Pandora World of Avatar Phase Two

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

Now that they are going to own the IP I assume there will be a big push for the franchise, including merchandise at Disney stores and maybe a specific Avatar store at Downtown Disney/Disney Springs. I also expect more Pandora lands, especially overseas (Avatar did 200MM in China before China was a BO behemoth). I do hope there's a Phase 2/3 or whatever planned for Animal Kingdom. An expansion with another shop/restaurant or two, new ride, and having Na'vi people showing up (or even holograms on the floating things) would be great. The new mech suit with the ACE guy that shows up every hour adds a bit to the land and I feel the land needs that. Probably won't come until Avatar 3 or 4 is out though.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Now that they are going to own the IP I assume there will be a big push for the franchise, including merchandise at Disney stores and maybe a specific Avatar store at Downtown Disney/Disney Springs. I also expect more Pandora lands, especially overseas (Avatar did 200MM in China before China was a BO behemoth). I do hope there's a Phase 2/3 or whatever planned for Animal Kingdom. An expansion with another shop/restaurant or two, new ride, and having Na'vi people showing up (or even holograms on the floating things) would be great. The new mech suit with the ACE guy that shows up every hour adds a bit to the land and I feel the land needs that. Probably won't come until Avatar 3 or 4 is out though.

I'm pretty sure Cameron/Lightstorm still own some -- if not all -- the film and theme park rights to Avatar. Fox was a co-producer for Avatar and its film distributor. So, Disney has the film distribution rights, but the other rights... I wouldn't bet Disney has all of it.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

I'm pretty sure Cameron/Lightstorm still own some -- if not all -- the film and theme park rights to Avatar. Fox was a co-producer for Avatar and its film distributor. So, Disney has the film distribution rights, but the other rights... I wouldn't bet Disney has all of it.

I will be glad to say that's not the case if I see the evidence. All I have seen points to Fox having at least co ownership to the IP. All Avatar merchandise I've seen has © Twenty First Century Fox. Disney had to license it from 21CF and Lightstorm IIRC. All evidence I have seen points to 21CF having at least co-copyright ownership to the material.

On the official Pandora site it says ©Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. JAMES CAMERON’S AVATAR is a trademark of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

Even a book is copyright by Fox:

https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=9&ti=1,9&Search_Arg=james cameron avatar&Search_Code=FT*&CNT=25&PID=oM7kTbj8bTfvnS1vnSq1BoFcMgUN&SEQ=20180816143921&SID=2

https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search_Arg=james cameron avatar&Search_Code=FT*&CNT=25&PID=oM7kTbj8bTfvnS1vnSq1BoFcMgUN&SEQ=20180816143921&SID=2

Search the trademark and everything is Fox

http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4805:edy6n5.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=live&p_tagrepl~:=PARA1$LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=avatar&p_tagrepl~:=PARA2$COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query

Maybe it's something like what WB has with HP, but it's definitely more than just a film distributor. Fox wouldn't make the same mistake again of just holding distribution after Star Wars.

 

[GoofGoof]

From the press release when Avatar Land was first announced back in 2011:

Disney reached a long-term, exclusive licensing agreement with "Avatar" director James Cameron and his producing partner Jon Landau, as well as the film's financier and distributor, 20th Century Fox, to develop theme park rides and attractions based on the 2009 hit and its two planned sequels.​

​

So based on that the theme park rights were co-owned by Cameron’s company and Fox. I’m not sure it really matters anyway since Disney already has a long term exclusive agreement. They just pay a portion of the royalty to themselves now. It doesn’t make it any more or less attractive to build additional theme park lands. It does make selling merchandise more appealing as well as building hype for the 27 sequels coming out in 2136. New lands can/will achieve both of those things so new lands are more likely now that Disney owns Fox.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

From the press release when Avatar Land was first announced back in 2011:

Disney reached a long-term, exclusive licensing agreement with "Avatar" director James Cameron and his producing partner Jon Landau, as well as the film's financier and distributor, 20th Century Fox, to develop theme park rides and attractions based on the 2009 hit and its two planned sequels.​

​

So based on that the theme park rights were co-owned by Cameron’s company and Fox. I’m not sure it really matters anyway since Disney already has a long term exclusive agreement. They just pay a portion of the royalty to themselves now. It doesn’t make it any more or less attractive to build additional theme park lands. It does make selling merchandise more appealing as well as building hype for the 27 sequels coming out in 2136. New lands can/will achieve both of those things so new lands are more likely now that Disney owns Fox.

Right. I think the IP is co owned by Lightstorm and 21CF. What I always hear people saying is that 21CF is just the distributor of the movies, which I don't think is true.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Right. I think the IP is co owned by Lightstorm and 21CF. What I always hear people saying is that 21CF is just the distributor of the movies, which I don't think is true.

While the IP could possibly be co-owned by 20CF, everything I find online from Wiki, the Avatar Wiki, IMDB, AFI, and other sources keep mentioning that 20CF 'financed' and 'distributed' or 'presented' Avatar. None of those terms necessarily indicate ownership. They can certainly indicate licensing rights.

Production companies are always listed as: Lightstorm and Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Film Partners -- and not 20CF.

Disney licensing Avatar from 20CF and Lightstorm for Pandora may mean there's ownership involved for 20CF, or, it just may be that 20CF had licensing rights for theme parks, just like they had distribution rights without actual ownership of the IP.

Disney may be in the same situation now with Avatar and Cameron as they are with Mary Poppins and the Travers Estate, or Universal with WWoHP and Rowling. Only they get to use the IP, but they don't own it... or only own part of it. It can go either way as far as I've been able to tell.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

While the IP could possibly be co-owned by 20CF, everything I find online from Wiki, the Avatar Wiki, IMDB, AFI, and other sources keep mentioning that 20CF 'financed' and 'distributed' or 'presented' Avatar. None of those terms necessarily indicate ownership. They can certainly indicate licensing rights.

Production companies are always listed as: Lightstorm and Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Film Partners -- and not 20CF.

Disney licensing Avatar from 20CF and Lightstorm for Pandora may mean there's ownership involved for 20CF, or, it just may be that 20CF had licensing rights for theme parks, just like they had distribution rights without actual ownership of the IP.

Disney may be in the same situation now with Avatar and Cameron as they are with Mary Poppins and the Travers Estate, or Universal with WWoHP and Rowling. Only they get to use the IP, but they don't own it... or only own part of it. It can go either way as far as I've been able to tell.

The IP owner should be the copyright claimer, not the production company. At least for that particular piece of work. AFI says Columbia was the sole production company for Spider-man 3:

https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/mov...-b70b-c8a4ee265483&sr=3.6703215&cp=1&pos=0Fox

Fox was the production company for X-Men
https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/mov...-4867-ab89-84faf75eb8a9&sr=3.86562&cp=1&pos=0


Neither company owns the IP.

Fox was involved in licensing the IP for:

Toys -> http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/52860-mattel-is-master-toy-licensee-for-camerons-avatar
Videogames -> https://web.archive.org/web/20070922041114/http://www.comingsoon.net/news/avatarnews.php?id=22704
https://www.licensing.biz/entertainment/fox-licensing-unveils-avatar-licensing-programme
Comic books -> https://www.slashfilm.com/dark-horse-teams-with-20th-century-fox-for-avatar-comic-book-series/
https://screenrant.com/james-cameron-avatar-comics-sequels/
Theme Parks -> https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/destinations/animal-kingdom/pandora-world-of-avatar/
Exhibit -> http://www.avatardiscoverpandora.com/
Cirque du Soleil -> https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/toruk

Every single merchandise at Pandora in AK is copyright 20th Century Films.

I don't think they cleanly own the IP, but until I see evidence to the contrary I believe they co own the IP at the very least. At worst the relationship would be like HP/JK Rowling - WB, not HP/JK Rowling - Universal where Universal just licensed the IP until 2029. WB cannot make a HP 8 or HP TV show without Rowling's consent, but they had to give consent to license out the product based on the film characters. Rowling could have circumvented that by licensing the franchise based on the source material.

At best it would be like Lucasfilm - Disney relationship.

 

[GoofGoof]

I don’t think it really matters who originally owned the theme park rights...they belong to Disney now after signing the original Avatar Land deal. It makes sense that maybe Fox had negotiated the original theme park and some other licensing rights from Cameron (who owns the IP) and Disney needed both sides to bless the Disney deal for AvLand. I don’t think they disclosed the length of the deal but it was described as “long term” which in theme park circles means decades. Similar to Marvel at Universal, Uni doesn’t own the IP but they own the East coast theme park rights to those specific characters pretty much forever. The big difference is the Avatar deal is worldwide...and Disney owns at least part of the merchandise rights now too so they actually make more money selling Avatar stuff in the parks than Uni does selling Marvel gear.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

I don’t think it really matters who originally owned the theme park rights...they belong to Disney now after signing the original Avatar Land deal. It makes sense that maybe Fox had negotiated the original theme park and some other licensing rights from Cameron (who owns the IP) and Disney needed both sides to bless the Disney deal for AvLand. I don’t think they disclosed the length of the deal but it was described as “long term” which in theme park circles means decades. Similar to Marvel at Universal, Uni doesn’t own the IP but they own the East coast theme park rights to those specific characters pretty much forever. The big difference is the Avatar deal is worldwide...and Disney owns at least part of the merchandise rights now too so they actually make more money selling Avatar stuff in the parks than Uni does selling Marvel gear.

Can you provide a reliable source for saying Cameron owns the IP? If anything Lightstorm co owns the IP with Fox. Everything I see shows that 21CF owns or co owns the IP. All rights to the Avatar project were transferred Lightstorm to 20th Century Fox in 2005. Avatar project to me means the source material, not the specifics to the movie hence why Fox can license out anything they want from the IP.

Cameron Develops Avatar
In 1995, four years after Morawski’s pitch, Cameron wrote a lengthy “scripment” for Avatar. He sent copies of the scripment to Twentieth Century Fox in 1996, but ultimately decided not to move forward with the project because he believed that the technology necessary to make the film was not sufficiently developed. A decade later, in 2005, Cameron revisited the idea of making Avatar, and Lightstorm transferred all rights to the project to Twentieth Century Fox. From late 2005 to 2006, Cameron wrote a first draft of the script for Avatar In January 2007, Twentieth Century Fox announced that it had given the project the green light. The film was released in December, 2009.

https://www.scribd.com/document/124001146/Avatar-ruling

Because in the mid-1990s the technology needed to make Avatar was insufficiently developed, Cameron shelved the project. SER163-164(SUF¶214). In 2005, he revisited making Avatar, and that year, Lightstorm transferred to Fox all rights in the project.

The purported breach thus occurred when Cameron did not negotiate with Morawski before allegedly using GoE to write the Scriptment in 1995, or at the latest, when Lightstorm transferred the Avatar rights to third-party Fox in 2005.

http://files.courthousenews.com/2015/02/12/Avatar Answering Brief.pdf

As a matter of fact one could argue for the evidence that Lightstorm and Cameron have any ownership in the IP because I haven't seen that. I mean I'm sure he has some ownership of it, but I only see circumstantial evidence such as the theme park agreement that Disney reached with Lightstorm/Cameron and Fox. However, that could easily be one of the requirements that Cameron had upon transferring the rights in 2005 so he could have control on the quality of the IP.

Disney does not own any part of the Avatar merchandise until after the deal closes. They get a percentage of the sale of items sold in their store as the retailer, nothing else.

 

[erasure fan1]

I certainly do agree that exploring the water portions of Pandora would be really neat (and something that Animal Kingdom in general skips over [aquatic based lifeforms]).

My fear of them exploring the aquatic side of Pandora is we would just end up with an all screens ride most likely. I would love to see something like Australia come to AK so they could do something with aquatics. For Pandora I would like to see something with more physical sets and AAs. Wishful thinking, I know.

 

[MisterPenguin]

FoP also shows snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Get ready for Blue Yeti!

 

[GoofGoof]

Can you provide a reliable source for saying Cameron owns the IP? If anything Lightstorm co owns the IP with Fox. Everything I see shows that 21CF owns or co owns the IP. All rights to the Avatar project were transferred Lightstorm to 20th Century Fox in 2005. Avatar project to me means the source material, not the specifics to the movie hence why Fox can license out anything they want from the IP.

Who owns the IP is pretty much irrelevant to this discussion. It’s a fact that Disney bought the theme park rights and that deal involved both Fox and Cameron so I would assume they either co-owned the theme park rights or the rights were passed from 1 party to the other but they were only transferable to a 3rd party with the original owner’s consent. In that scenario it could mean Cameron sold the theme park rights to Fox but had to consent to the eventual sale to Disney. No financial details were ever disclosed so it’s unkown how much Disney paid to what party.

Disney does not own any part of the Avatar merchandise until after the deal closes. They get a percentage of the sale of items sold in their store as the retailer, nothing else.

All of this talk around possible synergies is assuming the deal closes. That goes without saying.

 

[sedati]

A nice new aerial from Bioreconstruct today:

And to reiterate what I believe has been established:
Top right is expansion area for table service restaurant.
Bottom right (between bathrooms and River Journey) is where the entrance to third attraction would be, and would wrap around to the side and behind the existing showbuildings where there is currently a parking lot.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Bottom right (between bathrooms and River Journey) is where the entrance to third attraction would be, and would wrap around to the side and behind the existing showbuildings where there is currently a parking lot.

Would that be the rest of Navi River Journey?

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

IF the sequels do awesome AND the world economy remains strong, I'd say the odds of expansion are pretty high.

Along with that, I would say the odds of Pandora for Disney Paris and a possible 2nd Disneyland park in Shanghai and/or another city in China are pretty high as well.

 

[Dr.GrantSeeker]

This was starting to clog up the Star Wars Land thread so I felt as if the conversation should be moved here. There could be something in the works for Pandora. Absolutely minimal detail, pretty much that ideas are in the works/proposed. Thank you @marni1971 for everything you can share and all your contributions to this community.

I’m glad Disney is swinging for the fences. Pandora is a beautiful land and everyone can tell SW:GE will blow it out of the water. I hope they don’t stop there and keep trying to top itself.
Edit: I’m curious if they already bouncing ideas around for expansion.

So long as they remember to concentrate on the actual attraction as well as the lipstick.

I’d imagine Avland expansion before SWL expansion. Talking of bouncing stuff around.

Are you just imagining a Pandora expansion, or have heard something? (Not that I'd expect it to come
soon). Wondering if the old coaster idea would be in play, or something else? Also wondering where
the heck they'd expand into?

I'm well aware that this may not even be a thing. But, hey, you started it!

I’ve a great imagination, but I’m not using it here.

I think SWGE expansion should come before Pandora expansion -- just feels like they'll need the capacity there more. I can imagine them wanting to capitalize on Cameron's new movies, but if they're hoping for that I hope the timeline of the land won't depend on Cameron in any way!

They needed that SWL capacity yesterday.

Mitigating circumstances may help Avland.

There is a expansion area along the path leaving Pandora and heading towards Africa on the left.

That’s the berm. Expect any expansion to go to the south east of the boat ride.

It’s proposed.

 

[HauntedMansionFLA]

This was starting to clog up the Star Wars Land thread so I felt as if the conversation should be moved here. There could be something in the works for Pandora. Absolutely minimal detail, pretty much that ideas are in the works/proposed. Thank you @marni1971 for everything you can share and all your contributions to this community.

Welcome to the boards!!

 

[Dr.GrantSeeker]

Welcome to the boards!!

Its hard work trying to be a responsible active forum member!

 

[The Grand Inquisitor]

I definitely think pandora could use a dark ride, a restaurant, and maybe some animals throughout the land.

 

[The Grand Inquisitor]

I wonder if phase 2 will depend on how the sequels are received.