Warner Bros. is up for sale. So what does that mean for the theme park industry?
Warner Bros. has been providing IP for theme park attractions for over a generation. At one point, under previous ownership, Warner Bros. controlled the Six Flags chain of amusement parks. Six Flags continues to license Warner Bros. properties in DC Comics and Looney Tunes to this day. Warner Bros. has also licensed theme parks around the world, including the Theme Park Insider Award-winning Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi on Yas Island.
But now Warner Bros. Discovery, the company that was formed when Discovery Inc. acquired Warner Bros. from AT&T a few years back, is looking for a buyer. Reportedly, Comcast, Netflix and Paramount Skydance all have submitted bids for the company. Comcast and Netflix are said to be interested only in WB’s studios and streaming applications, while Paramount Skydance reportedly is interested in buying all of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Comcast owns NBCUniversal and therefore the Universal theme parks. They’ve been a partner with Warner Bros. for years, most notably in licensing The Wizarding World of Harry Potter franchise for its theme parks around the world. But Paramount and Netflix are involved in location-based entertainment as well. So what would Warner Bros. being sold to one of these three companies mean for theme park fans?
Paramount, before it was acquired by Skydance, famously exited the theme park business when it sold off its Paramount parks to the old Cedar Fair chain, which is now part of this new Six Flags Entertainment Corporation. Yet Paramount has licensed its IP to parks and attractions around the world. Warner Bros. has been more aggressive with location-based entertainment, operating its own chain of studio tours around the world, including Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood and the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London in Leavesden, England, which is where the Harry Potter movies were filmed.
Netflix also has gotten into location-based entertainment recently, with the opening of Netflix House attractions in some major cities in the US. Netflix also has licensed its IP in the past to Six Flags and Universal theme parks for their after-hours Halloween events.
But the big player in the theme park business is Comcast. A Warner Bros. sale to Comcast could trigger a cascade of events that would affect pretty much every major player in the global theme park industry, including Disney. So how would it all work?
If Paramount Skydance succeeds in buying Warner Bros., it’s hard to see how much would change significantly in the theme park business. Perhaps the new owners from the former Skydance Media might show more interest in location-based entertainment than the previous owners of Paramount did, but that’s hypothetical at this point. Basically, you just have the merger of two big media companies, meaning less diversity in the media landscape.
Netflix perhaps would be a little more interesting as an owner, because one would presume that the extensive Warner Bros. archive would end up on Netflix, which would give it much greater visibility among consumers, at least in the United States, but nothing is given.
Now, if Comcast gets control of Warner Brothers, I think you would see some major changes in the industry. Obviously, this would allow the Universal theme parks to continue licensing Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter franchise pretty much in perpetuity. The original license for Harry Potter had an end date on it, which reportedly has been extended with the expansion of Potter into new theme parks, including Universal Orlando’s new Epic Universe. But if Comcast controlled Warner Bros., it’s hard to imagine that this license would not become permanent.
Another change would be the availability of more Warner Bros. horror franchises for Halloween Horror Nights. Warner Bros. has stopped licensing its IP to Halloween Horror Nights in recent years. But if Warner Bros. and Universal come under the same corporate umbrella, it’s likely that we would see Warner Bros. IP returning to Halloween Horror Nights. It’s too late in the development process to see anything for this fall, but perhaps, if this deal goes through quickly, we could see something as early as 2027.
But the biggest potential change in the theme park business would come with Universal obtaining control of the DC Comics and Looney Tunes franchises in a Warner Bros. deal. Those franchises currently are licensed for theme parks in the United States to Six Flags with an agreement that extends well into the next decade and beyond. So Universal would not be able to immediately place Batman, Superman and Bugs Bunny into its U.S. theme parks.
But let’s talk about Six Flags for a moment. As all of us who have been following that company since its merger last year know, Six Flags is suffering from extreme debt problems. It needs cash. The company already has closed one theme park, with plans to sell its land as it tries to save on expenses and raise cash.
Both the Paramount Skydance and Comcast bids for Warner Bros. have been rumored in the industry to be backed by Saudi investment money. It’s unclear what the form of that investment would be. Perhaps the Saudis are seeking a percentage of Paramount Skydance or of Comcast in exchange for backing their Warner Bros. bids. Or perhaps the bids are structured in a way that Warner Bros. – or at least its assets obtained – would remain a separate company with significant Saudi ownership and U.S. corporate control.
However it happens, Comcast – with or without Saudi money – clearly has more cash at its disposal than Six Flags does. And Comcast might not even need its own cash to obtain the rights to Six Flags’ Warner Bros. IP.
Remember that Disney is desperate to get Universal’s license for the Marvel characters in the Orlando market. That deal, which Universal signed back in the 1990s, exists in perpetuity. So the only way that Disney is going to be able to develop core Avengers attractions – or even to use the Marvel name – at Walt Disney World is for it to obtain those rights from Universal.
Longtime theme park fans might remember that Islands of Adventure’s Marvel Super Hero Island initially was designed as a DC superheroes land. But when Warner Bros. wouldn’t play with the licensing rights and Marvel was desperate for cash, Universal pivoted and signed its deal with Marvel. This was years before the development of the MCU and Marvel’s purchase by Disney.
So it does not require much imagination to see how Universal Orlando could be able to re-theme Marvel Super Hero Island around DC Comics characters. The Incredible Hulk coaster could become a Superman coaster. The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man could become a Batman dark ride, and so forth.
Past Disney executives, at the highest level, confirmed to me that they had reached out and attempted to purchase the Marvel rights from Universal. Several years ago, there was a rumor flying around the industry that Universal was prepared to trade those Marvel rights to Disney in exchange for releasing Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks from a distribution deal with Disney. That is rumored to be the reason why Universal Studios Florida built its Transformers ride so quickly, because there was the thought that Universal Orlando would be without a trackless dark ride for some time, because Spider-Man would have to close for a re-theme.
Obviously, that never happened. But Disney’s interest in obtaining the Marvel rights has not waned. Disney recently played paid billions of dollars to Comcast to buy out its share of Hulu, so the companies have been doing deals together. Again, it takes very little imagination to envision that Disney would be willing to write a very large check to Comcast to obtain the Marvel rights in the Central Florida theme park market – a check big enough to cover the cost of buying back the DC and Looney Tunes rights from a cash-strapped Six Flags.
So you might be asking, well, why doesn’t that deal happen right now? Why does Universal need to buy Warner Bros. in order to pull the trigger on this deal? That’s because there is a poison pill in Six Flags license agreement with Warner Bros. That provision says that if any Hollywood studio attempts to buy that license – or even buy the Six Flags company – the DC and Looney Tunes rights immediately would revert to Warner Bros.
So the only Hollywood studio that can obtain those rights from Six Flags is Warner Bros. itself. That’s why Universal would need to obtain Warner Bros. to make this switch happen.
But imagine if it did. Imagine Looney Tunes under the control of NBCUniversal, which has shown a commitment to screwball animation with Illumination. Imagine the deep reservoir of Warner Bros. IP available to Universal Creative for new lands at Islands of Adventure and Universal Epic Universe.
And imagine a DC Comics Super Hero Island at IOA, freeing Walt Disney Imagineering to create a new home for marvel at the Walt Disney World Resort.
As a theme park fan, all of that sounds a lot more exciting than the same old-same old of Paramount Skydance merging with Warner Bros., or even Netflix getting control of the storied studio. But we are early in this acquisition process. It seems it could be months or even over a year before Warner Bros. decides about to whom to sell or whether to sell at all.
In the meantime, there is much for theme park fans to think about here.
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