Disney Battle Over Tomorrowland Trademark Rights

With an ongoing court battle between Disney and deadmau5 over the likeness of Mickey Mouse, the film giants now have to deal with a lawsuit surrounding the title of their upcoming adventure ‘Tomorrowland’.

The issue stems from their 2015 movie title, starring George Clooney, that bears the same name as the electronic music festival that has been running since 2005.

- Hocus Pocus 2 On The Way?
- Voice of Young Elsa Gets £587 From Disney
- Big Hero 6 Outdoes Interstellar At US Box Office

The dispute has arisen because the festival own the rights to the name in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which will therefore force a name change on Disney’s part. However, this is undesirable due to the Mouse House having already released a teaser trailer and marketed the film as ‘Tomorrowland’, so will want to keep the name of the film the same on a global scale.

Disney do have a long-standing feud with ID&T, the promoters for the Tomorrowland music festival, whereby they own the rights in the US, so when the music event came to the States, Disney forced them to rename as TomorrowWorld.

It’s not even like Disney can assert their influence by burying the dispute under a heap of paperwork and overpower with financial backing, because ID&T is part of SFX Entertainment, which has hundreds of millions of dollars to fight back.

Hopefully the disagreement between the two parties won’t get in the way of either the music festival or the Brad Bird directed movie. Such issues won’t have any bearing on the release of the film one would imagine, but it might be forced to change its name in certain countries to appease ID&T. After all, ‘The Avengers’ was renamed ‘Avengers Assemble’ here in the UK and that went on to make a mountain of cash.

- Inside Out: What We Know So Far
- First Look At Pixar’s Inside Out
- Are Pixar Films Sexist?

Picture credits: Disney