Sci-Fi Storm

Even though many of Marvel’s characters live over at nearby Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure, Disney will be showing off some of them at Walt Disney World. To celebrate the upcoming movie The Avengers, WDW will be “wrapping” (covering with a durable but removable skin) one of their Monorail trainsets with an advertisement for the movie, similar to how they created the “Tron-o-rail” for the release of Tron: Legacy.

Disney purchased Marvel back in 2009 for $4 billion, and then followed up by purchasing the distribution rights for several of the in-development movies, which were originally with Paramount. So Disney now basically owns all the Marvel properties. But Universal has a long-standing open-ended exclusive contract with Marvel that gives them exclusive rights to a number of Marvel characters for use in theme parks east of the Mississippi – which means that Disney cannot used them in the parks at Walt Disney World. The promotion of the movie, however, is a bit different – and in a sense it can only help promote the characters at the competing park.

It appears there are still some restrictions, though…word is this particular monorail will be restricted to the Magic Kingdom routes, and will not travel to Epcot – possibly because the beam track to Epcot actually runs within the park itself, which may violate the contract or agreement in place that restricts what can be done within the parks.