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Disney/FOX Acquisition Thread

Most of the rights Fox has aren't full rights just to be clear....

Simpsons, Percy Jackson, Kingsman, etc all are other people's IPs that the creators own usage of the property. Fox has to go through them for everything else.

Additionally, with Fox not having full rights, Disney will not be able to exploit them in the park.
 
Most of the rights Fox has aren't full rights just to be clear....

Simpsons, Percy Jackson, Kingsman, etc all are other people's IPs that the creators own usage of the property. Fox has to go through them for everything else.

Additionally, with Fox not having full rights, Disney will not be able to exploit them in the park.
wel since disney has good reltionship with the owner of the percy jackson series i could see them asking to be a reboot in the future
 
wel since disney has good reltionship with the owner of the percy jackson series i could see them asking to be a reboot in the future

Well that's the ironic thing is despite it being a Fox property, Disney already owned it...(Disney Hyperion books published) but still was using it as an example of how Fox may have certain rights but its way more complicated.
 
That brings us to the meat of the movie business, Fox's biggest franchises: Avatar and Marvel are the only clearly healthy franchises that they have.

Among the rest of their franchises: Aliens, Planet of the Apes, Kingsman, Die Hard, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Night at the Museum, Independence Day, Home Alone, Taken, Maze Runner, Percy Jackson, Ice Age, Rio. If you look at the rest of those franchises, most are nowhere near their "peak" and need to be completely rebooted (which it remains to be seen whether Disney would even choose to do). Kingsman has another movie coming out, but if you look at the rest, most have newer projects unconfirmed or cancelled and the most recent iterations performed poorly.
While your point is mostly valid, the Planet of the Apes franchise has been extremely healthy lately and the Alien franchise is still doing very well, also (from a Box Office perspective). Night at the Museum is also a solid box office performer and would make for an interesting crossover with National Treasure. Percy Jackson, as mentioned is also something I see Disney as being interested in.

BlueSky Animation is likely to be sold off. Disney doesn't need them and they bring nothing but mediocrity to the table. The question is who is in need of an in-house animation studio? Well, what about streaming/online services like Netflix, Google, Amazon, etc? Same answer can probably be applied to the question of who is going to buy the RSNs.

Changing topics, Disney will now own the rights to the SW Original Trilogy (which FOX still holds). Maybe we'll finally get a re-release now that will undo what the 1997 re-release did.
 
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While your point is mostly valid, the Planet of the Apes franchise has been extremely healthy lately and the Alien franchise is still doing very well, also (from a Box Office perspective). Night at the Museum is also a solid box office performer and would make for an interesting crossover with National Treasure. Percy Jackson, as mentioned is also something I see Disney as being interested in.

BlueSky Animation is likely to be sold off. Disney doesn't need them and they bring nothing but mediocrity to the table. The question is who is in need of an in-house animation studio? Well, what about streaming/online services like Netflix, Google, Amazon, etc? Same answer can probably be applied to the question of who is going to buy the RSNs.

Changing topics, Disney will now own the rights to the SW Original Trilogy (which FOX still holds). Maybe we'll finally get a re-release now that will undo what the 1997 re-release did.
Not quite sure that analysis is current though:

Planet of the Apes latest trilogy was certainly all profitable, but the latest, War, made $490 million which was a drop from Dawn's $710 million. Even if we discount that Dawn overperformed, War was the lowest performer in North America of the last 4 Planet of the Apes going back to 2001 at $146 million, which is at least $30 million below each of the others of the trilogy and the 2001 Planet of the Apes.

Aliens' latest iteration Covenant lost money with a $100 million budget (before P&A of probably around $40-50 million) against worldwide gross of $241 million (of which $45 million came from China). That's a fall from Prometheus which took $403 million worldwide.

Night at the Museum trilogy was all profitable, but again it's one of those that fell across each iteration to the point where the 3rd movie was barely profitable. The North America takes from the 3 movies fell from $251 million to $177 million to $114 million across the 3 movies. That's extremely unhealthy. Even the global take stagnated with China making up for shortfalls in other countries to hold the offshore take at $250 million.

Percy Jackson needs to be completely revamped (though Disney does apparently release the books, so they have an incentive to) with the movies costing around $90-100 million and each taking around $200-230 million worldwide. The latest also fell $20 million in North America from $88 million to $68 million. The profits are razor thin on these movies, so I don't see how they continue without a reboot.

We can basically see with most of Fox's franchises that reboots are needed. Even X-Men/FF need reboots looking at the various stages of production hell that some of that has gotten into as well as the general struggles of FF on the big screen, which is why this sale is timely in a general sense.

The Murdochs are, if nothing else, remarkably savvy about the timing with which they make decisions; they're selling looking at a bleak landscape when the value of their assets is at an incredible premium to the profitability and cash flows that they're putting off going forward. That's true for most of these assets for sale (except Star India and Hulu which have bright futures).

Of course, the reason Disney and presumably Comcast want these assets is that they have the heft to generate extra cash flows for the assets through streaming. The assets certainly are nowhere near the value of the price being paid right now.
 
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Not quite sure that analysis is current though:

Planet of the Apes latest trilogy was certainly all profitable, but the latest, War, made $490 million which was a drop from Dawn's $710 million. Even if we discount that Dawn overperformed, War was the lowest performer in North America of the last 4 Planet of the Apes going back to 2001 at $146 million, which is at least $30 million below each of the others of the trilogy and the 2001 Planet of the Apes.

Aliens' latest iteration Covenant lost money with a $100 million budget (before P&A of probably around $40-50 million) against worldwide gross of $241 million (of which $45 million came from China). That's a fall from Prometheus which took $403 million worldwide.

Night at the Museum trilogy was all profitable, but again it's one of those that fell across each iteration to the point where the 3rd movie was barely profitable. The North America takes from the 3 movies fell from $251 million to $177 million to $114 million across the 3 movies. That's extremely unhealthy. Even the global take stagnated with China making up for shortfalls in other countries to hold the offshore take at $250 million.

Percy Jackson needs to be completely revamped (though Disney does apparently release the books, so they have an incentive to) with the movies costing around $90-100 million and each taking around $200-230 million worldwide. The latest also fell $20 million in North America from $88 million to $68 million. The profits are razor thin on these movies, so I don't see how they continue without a reboot.

We can basically see with most of Fox's franchises that reboots are needed. Even X-Men/FF need reboots looking at the various stages of production hell that some of that has gotten into as well as the general struggles of FF on the big screen, which is why this sale is timely in a general sense.

The Murdochs are, if nothing else, remarkably savvy about the timing with which they make decisions; they're selling looking at a bleak landscape when the value of their assets is at an incredible premium to the profitability and cash flows that they're putting off going forward. That's true for most of these assets for sale (except Star India and Hulu).

Of course, the reason Disney and presumably Comcast want these assets is that they have the heft to generate extra cash flows for the assets through streaming. The assets certainly are nowhere near the value of the price being paid right now.
I know that the studio isn’t why they wanted it. But at the same time, all of the franchises I mentioned can do great if you put the right personnel in place. Hell, the Alien franchise is classic.
 
Sure...but the last half-way decent movie of the franchise came out 32 years ago, and even adjusted for inflation the most one made was less than 300 million dollars.
Again, I’m not arguing that Fox’s studio has put out any big blockbusters outside of Marvel or Avatar lately. But part of the reason for the acquisition is for CONTENT. FOX has put out a lot of really good movies. Just because they aren’t all big blockbusters doesn’t mean they won’t help a streaming service.

Just for example, FOX released The Greatest Showman. Not a mega-hit, but it did pretty well for its budget and the music has been incredibly well received, with the soundtrack just going Platinum.
 
I know that the studio isn’t why they wanted it. But at the same time, all of the franchises I mentioned can do great if you put the right personnel in place. Hell, the Alien franchise is classic.
I meant that about all the assets btw, most of Fox's assets for sale are declining assets: the studios (due to competition for scripted talent on the tv side and tired franchises on the movie side), FX/National Geographic which have faced serious sub losses and falling profitability, and the Fox RSNs (which are declining in subs even though extremely profitable, which means their profitability is in a long slow decline; they also face the prospect of companies like Youtube and Facebook going after their local market rights for sports teams).

Sky itself is a satellite broadcaster which will need to shift most of its subs over to streaming (they are ahead of the curve on that for sure with great tech and great rights ownership in the near-term), but in competitive terms, there's no defensive barriers to entry for streaming compared to satellite, and they will face satellite sub losses over time. Even in their most important market, UK, they are 3rd after Netflix and Amazon Prime in streaming, but at least they're in the game and sub gains across Europe can make up for weakness in their model. Plus, Net Neutrality rules and various restrictions on broadband co's in Europe make the business much safer than the US is for distributors.

Star India and Hulu are the clearest growing assets with good market position of the group. They're by far the most valuable pieces of the puzzle here.

While I can see the rationale of Comcast and Disney going after the assets for building on streaming, it's also obvious that Murdoch is a motivated seller.

Most importantly, we need to see the price that Disney extracts for the RSNs. They have to sell those within 90 days (give or take) of closing the Fox deal. I'd assume that Comcast pulled out of the bidding because if they were to offer $80-85 billion for the Fox assets, then they'd need to sell the RSNs for $25 billion to justify the deal without the RSNs (and I don't see any way anybody would offer close to that).
 
The biggest question is what about the F4 movie rights? Contrary to popular belief, Fox doesn't actually own the film rights to the F4 franchise, Constantin Film does, they just license Fox to distribute the F4 movies. Even to this day, we don't know if the Fox distribution rights with F4 will end and everything will automatically revert back to Constantin Films once the Disney/FOX merger goes through. So if that's really true, would Constantin stay with Disney or they will just go to another movie studio to distribute their F4 films?
 
BlueSky Animation is likely to be sold off.l
It seems equally likely that Disney could just shutter the studio. They’ve only had one real franchise (Ice Age) which is long past dead and comprises the majority of their filmography.

Not sure there’s a buyer out there who couldn’t just start their own animation studio for a lot less.
 
The biggest question is what about the F4 movie rights? Contrary to popular belief, Fox doesn't actually own the film rights to the F4 franchise, Constantin Film does, they just license Fox to distribute the F4 movies. Even to this day, we don't know if the Fox distribution rights with F4 will end and everything will automatically revert back to Constantin Films once the Disney/FOX merger goes through. So if that's really true, would Constantin stay with Disney or they will just go to another movie studio to distribute their F4 films?
F4 will end up in MCU one way or another. Realistically, they aren't strong enough to justify a separate movie universe.
 
I can't wait for the HP movies to be far enough in the rearview mirror so I can finally get my 8 episodes per book Harry Potter series.

#JustiveforNeville #JusticeforPeeves

But really I think that's where a lot of this Fox content could end up. Disney basically is in the tentpole business in theaters now. Fox makes more sense for a streaming platform in their model.
 
The biggest question is what about the F4 movie rights? Contrary to popular belief, Fox doesn't actually own the film rights to the F4 franchise, Constantin Film does, they just license Fox to distribute the F4 movies. Even to this day, we don't know if the Fox distribution rights with F4 will end and everything will automatically revert back to Constantin Films once the Disney/FOX merger goes through. So if that's really true, would Constantin stay with Disney or they will just go to another movie studio to distribute their F4 films?

Do they go with another studio and continue making crap movies with poor returns or do they team up with Marvel with the potential to make a huge return albeit split?
 
It seems equally likely that Disney could just shutter the studio. They’ve only had one real franchise (Ice Age) which is long past dead and comprises the majority of their filmography.

Not sure there’s a buyer out there who couldn’t just start their own animation studio for a lot less.

I kinda hope Disney sells Fox Animation along with the rights so we can switch Simpsons for Bob's Burgers....
 
I kinda hope Disney sells Fox Animation along with the rights so we can switch Simpsons for Bob's Burgers....
There's no way Disney would get rid of the television animation. Simpsons alone is worth a couple billion (streaming rights went to FXX for 750M-1B). I don't think Bob's Burgers is popular enough to guarantee a ride either sadly.
 
F4 will end up in MCU one way or another. Realistically, they aren't strong enough to justify a separate movie universe.

True, that leaves Sony the only major studio to own a film rights to a Marvel franchise (aka Spider-Man). After their deal with MCU is done, Sony will get back to its own game as usual. On the other hand, if the Disney/FOX deal goes through, that makes NBCUniversal the only major media conglomerate not to own a successful superhero franchise and adult-animated shows. Aliens, American Horror Story, and Predators will be forever blocked from being used for HHN, and Universal would have to license more properties for its 3rd theme park in Orlando.

There's no way Disney would get rid of the television animation. Simpsons alone is worth a couple billion (streaming rights went to FXX for 750M-1B). I don't think Bob's Burgers is popular enough to guarantee a ride either sadly.

More importantly, none of the Fox adult-animated shows would be suitable for any Disney park, simply because it would conflict with the magic, kid-friendly, and fantasy of the Disney parks. You would expect these shows to be made into attractions at Universal parks.
 
True, that leaves Sony the only major studio to own a film rights to a Marvel franchise (aka Spider-Man). After their deal with MCU is done, Sony will get back to its own game as usual. On the other hand, if the Disney/FOX deal goes through, that makes NBCUniversal the only major media conglomerate not to own a successful superhero franchise and adult-animated shows. Aliens, American Horror Story, and Predators will be forever blocked from being used for HHN, and Universal would have to license more properties for its 3rd theme park in Orlando.



More importantly, none of the Fox adult-animated shows would be suitable for any Disney park, simply because it would conflict with the magic, kid-friendly, and fantasy of the Disney parks. You would expect these shows to be made into attractions at Universal parks.
The one thing to keep in mind is that Universal/Paramount/Sony/Warner will have space to try new franchises assuming Disney lets a lot of the more tired Fox franchises expire or goes the tv route with them (i.e. on Hulu or one of their new streaming services).

I think that's a critical difference between the proposed Disney and Comcast takeovers; the only franchise that's likely to survive intact either way is Avatar. Under Disney, Kingman will probably still get its 3rd movie I'd imagine, but I find it hard to see Disney easily greenlighting anything else. Planet of the Apes needs a new plotline as do many of Fox's other franchises after their most recent outings.

The upcoming films to watch are The Predator and Alita Battle Angel from Fox. Those are their most obvious upcoming attempts to jump start franchises, and Disney brass will follow those 2 closely.

Beyond that, we just have to wait and see what Disney does with the rest. Given how full Disney's schedule is for the next couple of years, it's hard to see them pushing out Fox franchise revamps any time soon. Avatar and Kingsman 3 appear to be safe propositions with everything else up in the air or delayed/cancelled in the short-term.

Either way, if Fox is ceding a lot of blockbuster dates, that opens things up for others.
 
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