I think that's almost a given.
But What does Disney like even more than money? It's CONTROL over the money...
And a partnership with Cameron doesn't fit that model. He likes control even more...but he has deep
Pockets...it never made any sense for them to finance 100% of James Cameron's 3 dimensional playground without "concessions"...especially for a blah ip that won't drive sales.
Going back to news reports at the time, it seems the were announcing several new sequels at the exact same time they announced the license acquisition. It wouldn't surprise me if Disney negotiated for publishing rights of the movies, and maybe even a little creative input, in return for building the land.
Also, even though there are some very vocal critics of the movie, and the storyline itself wasn't anything to write home about, it *banked* and really pioneered the 3D movie revolution. Sitting here in 2016 we can easily see how quickly it petered out, but back in 2011 I can see trigger happy execs thinking they were going to ride the gravy train on this tech.
Disney went nuts with 3D, however they opted for the horrid post processing version rather than actually filming with 3D cameras. And then seemed surprised when people got sick of it real fast.
For my part, I find it very believable that, given the state of things in 2010/2011, Disney was in a panic mode. They had just acquired Marvel, then they got Avatar rights, and then the following year they acquired Lucasarts. They were obviously on an IP acquisition frenzy, and it isn't too fa fetched to figure they knew they needed *something* for AK. Even if the LucasArts deal was already in the pipeline at the time, nothing in that portfolio could have really fit into AK. On the marvel side, even if they *could* build marvel attractions in Orlando, it doesn't have much to offer int he way of stuff for AK either (other than a really silly version of Savageland or something... and I only mention that jokingly).
So assuming they wanted an IP for AK, going with one of the highest grossing films with the promise of a bunch of sequels in the next decade honestly doesn't seem that far fetched to me. Universal made major concessions with Rowling over the Potter license. No M&G's, no face characters based on the books characters, no holiday theming (this may be changing currently though), etc... heck, if you have the photo pass you can't even get the harry potter borders printed around your picture unless you march over to the 'wizarding world' and get it done in their photo shop. In many ways, both harry potter sections operate as their own independent areas.
edit: Yikes.. Avatar 2, 3, AND 4 are being filmed together? Absolutely insane. Cameron, Fox (assuming their are publishing), and Disney stand to loose a *lot* here. I don't think the first Avatar was horrible or anything, but I have doubts that 3 more movies in the series can capture the same amount of money as the first one did. The film landscape has changed a lot since then, and I honestly believe a lot of people went to Avatar just to see the "amazing 3D" as it was touted at the time.
