When you get to the top of the tower, you could hear Jimmy's haunting voice telling you "I can see the Grand Canyon!". It fits better than Marvel would... For DCA at least, it seems like it is essentially a done deal. WDW seems to be much more in flux, leaning toward probably not, but no final decision has been made yet. I'll be curious to see if they try to bring the overlay to WDSP if DCA's is a success, since the towers are identical and that park is presumably looking for a more permanent Marvel presence too
So is Disney losing the IP license for the Twilight Zone? That's supposedly what led to this. And if they're losing it, how can they keep it in WDW? Or was the losing the license thing just an excuse (or incorrect rumor) and they just want to do the overlay to increase Marvel synergy to begin with?
How much could a 60 year old tv show IP license be worth? I bet this has to do with budget cuts because of Shanghai. Because of Shanghai, we lose our Tower of Terror. #thanksshanghai
I have no idea how much the license would cost, but re-theming any TOT's is obviously more expensive than leaving them alone. So it may not be insignificant. That still leaves the question, though: if they're losing the license, how can they keep the TZ theme for WDW?
Oh I know. I was just exaggerating. But I still think it's a few dollars the biggest entertainment company in the world could save without cutting someone's personal theifdom.
I bet the licensing is up for renewal, so they would be able to renegotiate a WDW only license. Just a guess though. Or for all I know their licensing agreement is set up so that Disney could opt out at any time.
I would guess this is probably right. If they were getting toward the end of the contract, there would be no harm in investigating how to change it up. And once people started thinking, perhaps someone with power decided this was a "good" idea and ran with it, regardless of the budget implications. Though it's not as if this would increase TOT's popularity any; it seems to run at capacity all day long, so no more people will be able to ride it after the overlay than before I also wonder how expensive the license could possibly be for a show that's more part of the pop culture ether than actually popular. And regardless of what happens in DCA and WDW, there has been no indication that the theme will be dropped in WDSP, where budgets are always a paramount concern
An interesting thought occurred to me: It could be argued that Disney continuing the TZ name in parks around the world is actually doing CBS (TZ license holder) a favor. Almost like they should be paying Disney for keeping the name current rather than the other way around. So what if Disney were threatening to pull the name from a couple of towers as a negotiating ploy to get a better deal on renewing the license fee? Like "Hey, we've got a property of our own we could use as a theme for the towers if you're going to go all hardball on the price renewal. We don't need your stinking IP." Or "Hey, CBS. Nice Intellectual Property you've got there. Shame if anything should happen to it." And they throw out these rumors and certain sites pick it up and run with it. Maybe even they DO do the blue-sky on retheming in case they decide that's the better way to go anyway. But the genesis was actually as a negotiating ploy. Whoa. I just blew my own mind. (Cue TZ theme: Doo doo doo doo, Doo doo doo doo...)
If it was a more popular IP, maybe... But they just may be wanting to reach a younger demographic... How many people going to DL/WDW nowadays know what the Twilight Zone is? I mean, you don't really *need* to know what it is (cause the ride works well even if you don't know), but they may be thinking that with something the younger generation already knows and is popular (ie: GotG), they may be able to get more people riding... Not that I agree with that... Cause I like the TZ and the ride, but it could be that combined with having to pay CBS = just not worth it (especially when you have a ton of *new* Marvel IP's at your disposal)...
FWIW, apparently they're trying an "interactive reboot" of TZ. 'Twilight Zone' Is Getting an Interactive Reboot (Exclusive) The term "Twilight Zone" is in the popular lexicon, even for people who may never have seen the original show. It's hard to put a value on that - and the very difficulty of it may be entering into the discussions on renewal and how many parks they renew it for. Using it with TOT has obviously been symbiotic for CBS and Disney thus far, but Tokyo showed you don't NEED a TZ theme for the ride, which would give Disney a little leverage to say "maybe we don't need it in these other parks either. We have our own IP we can slap on there. Unless you were willing to give us a better deal..."
I say they do this right and just put a "An American Horror Story: Hotel overlay. haunted hotel, different timelines, weird and scary and it takes place in California. lol
but we can get a creepy Lady Gaga AA along with a few of those creepy vampire kids. then they can replace part of the gift shop with another bar, bet you they would make more money on drinks then highlight zone key chains LOL
