IP licensing

Madrid, Tuesday, 14 October 2025.
Paramount has accelerated a global licensing push, striking strategic themed-experience deals with Parques Reunidos and Merlin Entertainments that signal a shift from owning assets to monetizing IP. Earlier this year Parques Reunidos confirmed a long-term Paramount partnership while selling its U.S. Palace Entertainment arm to Herschend to redeploy capital toward licensed projects; Merlin is developing the UK’s first PAW Patrol land and expanding Peppa Pig and other Paramount-driven offerings into U.S. footprints. The most intriguing fact: operators are intentionally recycling physical assets to fund rapid IP rollouts, turning studio brands into a scalable, lower-capital route to family visitation gains. For retail and onsite commerce teams this means tighter alignment between master-planning, themed retail assortments, price architecture and capacity-led merchandising—plus new license-fee economics, sustainability and accessibility obligations that will affect lifetime cost models and per-capita revenue forecasts.

Madrid, Monday, 1 September 2025.
Paramount accelerated its Europe play by signing multi‑park licensing deals with Parques Reunidos and Merlin, announced last Sunday, to fast-track Paramount‑branded lands and experiences across operator networks. The most striking development: Merlin will open the UK’s first dedicated PAW Patrol® land at Chessington in 2026, demonstrating Paramount’s tactic of leveraging preschool and family IP to shorten development cycles, lower creative risk, and drive cross‑park retail and F&B synergies. For operators, these partnerships offer standardized design assets and brand guidelines that can compress lead times and support lifecycle refresh planning tied to media schedules. The deals arrive as Parques Reunidos shifts focus toward Europe, signaling renewed competition for proven children’s franchises that may push licensing costs higher and require capacity and themed‑engineering tradeoffs. Retail and operations teams should prepare for integrated merchandising opportunities, tighter seasonality linked to content, and faster refresh cadences as media tie‑ins become central to guest acquisition strategies.