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?
The incentives just aren't there. It's a lose-lose-lose for Universal.
Universal wouldn't have agreed to feature the IP in the first place if they didn't think it would be a draw of some kind (
or it services a relationship with a company they want to do business with in the future. Take
Evil Dead now, get something like
It down the line.)
Your assumption that they didn't put too much money into designing anything Evil Dead-specific is a false one. Everything IP-related has to get final approval from the party/parties that control the IP, and Universal's whole pitch is to realize the film worlds in a physical space. In other words, they absolutely put the usual amount of resources and effort into building/sourcing sets, props, costumes, makeups, and masks that closely resembled what's on screen. Recycling is more permissible/feasible for original houses, though obviously props are props are props, so some things can get repurposed in IP settings.
The merchandise would be another issue, but probably not the biggest one. With that said, reprinting house shirts to exclude Evil Dead Burn this late in the game would be a considerable expense and hassle.
The actual problem would be replacing the house itself. The Horror Nights design and production workflow is not built in a way to facilitate last-minute pivots, period. These houses call for something like 15+ months of planning from conception to execution (not sure what the actual number is these days, but for a while, it was around here). Yes, they've already built sets, which now need to be modified
enough to conceal what they originally were to the satisfaction of WB. It's hard to say how much of a lift that is without having seen the movie or what they've constructed, but the event starts in just over a month.
This means they would have to rally creative teams of all stripes to quickly brainstorm a new concept
that can work with what's there for the least amount of money, because they didn't budget for this. These teams are also swamped with actually finishing the rest of the event, and some vendors may have already committed to other projects. Still, they somehow either need to build (or more likely, again, recycle) costume, mask, and makeup assets that ideally align with the casts they've already assembled. Then they've gotta clear the new house name and description and commission new art assets...
...all of this for a haunted house that they know is more likely than not to be a dud and rejected by guests. Hellblock Horror was not good, and word got around fast.
All this to say, this isn't something that Universal would do unless they were forced to.