Is Disney Planning to Trade Hulu to Comcast in Order to Build an Avengers Theme Park in Florida?
As Disney continues to tread water regarding its Hulu problem, investors and analysts are getting creative with fixes for the company. Disney has the right to purchase the final 33% from Comcast before the end of 2024 thanks to a contractual agreement that would give the company complete ownership, but Disney is open to all possibilities, including selling its 67% stake in the general entertainment streamer.
The real problem for Disney is that its streaming segments are still losing piles of money (over $1 billion per quarter at last count), and the company wants to turn those losses into profits by the end of next year. Some in the industry have offered creative solutions to the problem, such as swapping control of ESPN for Comcast’s share of Hulu straight up.
In March, a Citi analyst proposed a trade that would send Disney’s majority holdings in Hulu to Comcast in exchange for rights to certain Marvel comics characters. Puck analyst Eriq Gardner is taking that proposal a step further, suggesting that Disney could potentially get a lot more than just the Hulk in its negotiations, and that recent Disney paperwork might suggest that this is in the plans.
The crux of this idea lies in the fact that Marvel once sold its lifetime theme park rights east of the Mississippi River to Universal and its subsidiaries. That explains why Disney has developed an Avengers campus in both California and Paris, but not at Walt Disney World in Florida. Gardner proposes that Disney could include those theme park rights in a trade with Comcast, and start working toward a new Avengers-themed park there instead of chasing bad money with good money by continuing to pursue Hulu.
Would such a move make sense? It would certainly fall in line with two of Disney chairman Bob Iger’s goals: further development of Disney World, and a larger presence for Marvel characters there. At the annual shareholders’ meeting earlier this month, Iger said that he’d “love to be able to do more with Marvel in our parks.” The CEO also said that he plans to spend $17 billion on Disney World over the next ten years, and that money has to go somewhere. Recent Disney documents have indicated that the company has plans to construct an entirely new park on currently undeveloped land that it owns in Central Florida, but no official plans have been announced.
It could also be a fantastic move on Comcast’s part. At this point, the Marvel brand is so heavily associated with Disney that there’s no going back for Universal. Plus, bringing Hulu into the fold would give the company more options and flexibility with all of its streaming services when it relaunches Xumo Play, the joint streaming platform Comcast is developing with Charter Communications.
Disney may have to go another few rounds with Florida governor Ron DeSantis if such a trade were made to get an Avengers theme park built. Judging from the outcome last round of clashes between the two, however, Disney would likely welcome another such confrontation. All of this remains conjecture until Disney decides what it actually wants to do with Hulu, but until then, industry analysts will continue to speculate on creative solutions to the Hulu problem.
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