Granted, I dont know much about media rights and licensing IP among entertainment companies, but to play devil’s advocate, couldn’t the benefit to Universal being avoiding paying the licensing fee for a property that’s not evidently moving the needle?
Sure, the house is built, but can’t imagine too much money went into designing anything “Evil Dead”-specific (the movies are all relatively generic in their iconography). Plus so much has been made here about how much HHN recycles props/layouts during construction anyway.
My assumption is that the biggest loss would be presumably eating the cost of merchandise, but if it’s not gonna sell anyway who cares? Shelf space is valuable, maybe there’s an equation that says bumping that merch for more Sinners/Stranger Things is worth the hassle of the last-minute pivot?
Again, this is all out of my element so I’m genuinely curious. I get that, even setting aside dollars and cents there’s probably a risk of straining the relationship with the studio, but given how that’s gone in the past (Conjuring, Evil Dead Rise, etc.) was it that great in the first place?