When someone says "They need to negotiate with the IP", no one thinks of a person. Come on now.
I can actually shed a little light on this since I have experience in this area.
When an actor signs on to a movie or television show, they are agreeing for their likeness to be used in that production and, normally, for marketing purposes (but not merchandise, that’s separate) – however every
type of use (online, print, outdoor) and the regions of the world where it’s used is negotiated between the actor’s attorney and the studio. The push-and-pull is that the Studio wants all rights, and the actor wants to give no rights. It’s all part of the game.
For example, if you look back at ads for LOST, you always see the entire cast appears in each print ad. This isn’t a creative choice – all the actors collectively agreed that they all must appear on any print ad together to ensure nobody gets more promotion than anybody else.
Now, theme park rights: Theme park rights are usually an afterthought, (or at least they were until the past 10 years or so), so that is traditionally a totally separate negotiation apart from the initial contract for the movie/TV show.
Regarding Jimmy Fallon, if Comcast were to ask him to be in an attraction in Florida, of course he should be a “good guy” and do it, however, nobody at the company would expect him to do it for free since this is clearly above and beyond his normal duties as host of a talk show, and he should be compensated accordingly.
If you see ads for GrinchMas (do they still do that?) you’ll see an actor in makeup that looks like Jim Carrey as the Grinch, but it’s not Jim Carey. Universal owns that particular execution of the Grinch character, but Carey was not paid for his portrayal of The Grinch to be used. Therefore it is someone else in that makeup, even if it’s hard to tell.
When it came time to build a Back To The Future Ride, a Universal Movie, at a Universal Park, they had carte blanche to do what they want with the IP – meaning the story, the costumes, the time machine, the
characters (but not the
actors), the “world” if you will. Universal could write 400 BTTF books or make a cartoon or comic book without paying the actors anything since that’s only dealing with the characters, not the actors. Of course, in a theme park attraction, you want to see the actual actors as the characters. That’s a separate negotiation.
Michael J. Fox refused for his likeness to be used in a theme park attraction. Some actors don’t like the idea of being replayed endlessly on monitors for throngs of guests for decades for a relatively small compensation compared to a theatrical run of a movie. Christopher Lloyd DID agree. He also agreed for his likeness to be used in
print advertising for the ride. However, he DIDN’T agree for his likeness to be used in
outdoor advertising (aka billboards). I’m not sure if any of you remember the billboards for BTTF The Ride – they featured the time machine zooming across the face of Doc Brown. You could see the character’s telltale white hair, but NOT his face. It was blocked by the fire trails of the time machine. This was a way of getting around using the likeness of the actor.
Only Richard Attenbourough agreed to be in the JP: River Adventure (they shot that queue video when they were filming the movie, way before they had any idea what the ride was actually going to be like). But they had walk-around characters for Ian Malcom, John Hammond, etc., which they didn't have to consult the actors for.
This is why there’s no problem with walkaround (“face”) characters in the park. It’s not the actor playing the part, so it doesn’t matter. The studio owns the IP (character) so they can have other actors portray the character. With characters such as Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, Universal pays for the rights from 3rd party agencies that control use of those characters. (There is no Harry Potter face character at Rowling’s request)
There’s also other miscellaneous issues when negotiating IPs. Some writers or producers have special agreements with studios. For example, Universal will never, ever be able to make a sequel to Back To The Future without Co-Writer Bob Gale’s permission. He was smart enough to negotiate that term when he signed on for the sequels, having the foresight to know that the trilogy would be a huge hit and he would want to maintain creative control.
So as you can see there are a lot of things to consider when using an IP to build a theme park attraction, and the individual actors definitely add an extra layer of difficulty to the process.