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Disney/FOX Acquisition Thread

Let's say Disney does acquire Fox. I can see Comcast wanting to combat and acquire Sony or Paramount.

-Paramount has distributed several Dreamworks films as well as Transformers, Mission Impossible, etc.
-Sony does not have such a great line up, but if Comcast wishes to create their own streaming service, it would fit well with their library.
 
Let's say Disney does acquire Fox. I can see Comcast wanting to combat and acquire Sony or Paramount.

-Paramount has distributed several Dreamworks films as well as Transformers, Mission Impossible, etc.
-Sony does not have such a great line up, but if Comcast wishes to create their own streaming service, it would fit well with their library.
FOX has distributed a great deal more DW movies than Paramount.

I could see it happening though under the assumption that the FOX/Disney deal happens.
 
Let's say Disney does acquire Fox. I can see Comcast wanting to combat and acquire Sony or Paramount.

-Paramount has distributed several Dreamworks films as well as Transformers, Mission Impossible, etc.
-Sony does not have such a great line up, but if Comcast wishes to create their own streaming service, it would fit well with their library.

Sony has the biggest television library out of all the big 6 networks and Comcast already said they don't want their own streaming service because they essentially make way more licensing them out

Paramount/Viacom is connected to CBS and until the Sumner family dies that will never go through.

Comcast would buy up smaller production studios before they buy another major if Disney gets Fox like A24, Lionsgate, etc.
 
@Joe @Nick C.

I wouldn't be too worried about Fox trying to gain control of Disney. It would destroy all the tax advantages to do that. Rupert Murdoch isn't going to do a taxable merger that would make himself $3bn poorer.

The way this merger will work is Fox will technically split into 2 companies: New Fox and Fox Entertainment. Fox investors will receive Disney shares in exchange for shares of Fox Entertainment, and New Fox will continue with Fox broadcast/News/Sports.

Rupert Murdoch's trust will get $7-10bn in Disney stock tax free. That will give him 4-4.5% of Disney's stock. That's the same % as Steve Jobs' widow controls due to Pixar merger.

It's really not much of a concern. Iger wouldn't do this if it resulted in Fox somehow gaining a controllable 20-25% stake in Disney. That won't happen because the Disney stock will be issued directly to Fox investors not 21st Century Fox itself - this is key for a nontaxable merger.

As far as James Murdoch goes, he helped build Sky and Star India. He's not associated as much with the US assets of Fox like Lachlan, if he goes to Disney, it would be to manage Sky/Star India (i.e. Disney's new international division).
 
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense for him to do that if he's planning a company-changing makeover for Disney with this purchase of Fox's entertainment assets.

Disney will have so much going on with both transitioning their cable networks and launching OTT competitors to Netflix/Amazon Prime and having to establish a new executive hierarchy across its studios/cable networks, he sort of would have to stay on a couple extra years at least to sort it all out.
 
Comcast doesn't have enough reasons to get this done compared to Disney. I don't see it being worth 60+ billion and giving up stock for Comcast to get Hulu and some IPs. Disney wants it more, and I'm pretty sure they'll get it done.
 
Comcast doesn't have enough reasons to get this done compared to Disney. I don't see it being worth 60+ billion and giving up stock for Comcast to get Hulu and some IPs. Disney wants it more, and I'm pretty sure they'll get it done.
Arguably, if you are looking in films; there are reasons. But that in a sense, those reasons may not been enough for Comcast to push on more for them to talk with Fox as opposed to Disney.
 
I'm not a fan of Disney fully integrating Fox. They're really different companies. Disney doesn't take as many risks on movies and I can't see most of Fox's IPs working in theme parks.

Plus, I'm a fan of competition. Fox and Disney as a mega-studio just means less movies for us.
 
Comcast Seeks Sky Ownership in Battle for Fox Assets - Bloomberg
Fox sale: Can Comcast's Roberts and Murdoch make a deal? Disney could have inside track

A little reminder is that Comcast is still not going to give up the fight, despite stiff competition from Disney. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts had met with Murdoch yesterday at the New York Athletic Club discussing Fox's key assets and article #1 says that a Disney/Fox deal wouldn't go so easily either.
If Comcast doesn't want to get into anti-trust issues, they could just offer more for the international assets and the 30% of Hulu that Fox controls. But it's not clear how Disney would react to that. The problem is that the foreign assets are probably wanted by both companies, and that 30% of Hulu is also extremely important given that it gives either Disney or Comcast 60% control of Hulu. Disney isn't doing this for just the movie/tv studio and FX/National Geographic/regional sports networks.

Either way, with the AT&T-TimeWarner lawsuit, I don't see Fox wanting to try to sell the regional sports networks, FX, National Geographic to Comcast, that would be a mess to try to get past the Trump administration before the AT&T lawsuit is settled.

Also worth noting that Comcast's last attempt to try a big horizontal merger failed when their TimeWarner Cable merger failed and Charter instead ended up with TimeWarner Cable. I doubt Fox wants to go through that.
 
Arguably, if you are looking in films; there are reasons. But that in a sense, those reasons may not been enough for Comcast to push on more for them to talk with Fox as opposed to Disney.

Honestly, most of the franchises FOX has are not all that valuable IMO. Avatar is huge, but nobody knows if it's franchise material yet. The Marvel properties are big, but only for Disney. Fans don't want a Universal made X-Men or Fantastic Four movie, those IPs just hold more value to Disney because of the MCU. Alien, Predator, Planet of the Apes are decent IPs I suppose but Disney just has way more incentive to get this done than Comcast.
 
Honestly, most of the franchises FOX has are not all that valuable IMO. Avatar is huge, but nobody knows if it's franchise material yet. The Marvel properties are big, but only for Disney. Fans don't want a Universal made X-Men or Fantastic Four movie, those IPs just hold more value to Disney because of the MCU. Alien, Predator, Planet of the Apes are decent IPs I suppose but Disney just has way more incentive to get this done than Comcast.

To be honest, while I don't think Disney will "Disneify" Fox (because, look at what Lucasfilm and Marvel Entertainment has put out); but I do think they will have a reduced amount of films per year.

A reason why I think Comcast would've been good, primarily for IP's like Alien, Predator, Apes, Die Hard, Avatar; is that those are films that can lead to larger franchises; which is something Universal needs (Jurassic can't be the only major tent-pole). I feel they will lose some of that power when they go to Disney, and while I don't negate them not being used, I have a feeling there will be a lesser amount of those said films.
 
To be honest, while I don't think Disney will "Disneify" Fox (because, look at what Lucasfilm and Marvel Entertainment has put out); but I do think they will have a reduced amount of films per year.

A reason why I think Comcast would've been good, primarily for IP's like Alien, Predator, Apes, Die Hard, Avatar; is that those are films that can lead to larger franchises; which is something Universal needs (Jurassic can't be the only major tent-pole). I feel they will lose some of that power when they go to Disney, and while I don't negate them not being used, I have a feeling there will be a lesser amount of those said films.

None of those IPs, except Avatar, are tent pole blockbuster ones though. An Alien movie came out this year and didn't exactly set the world on fire, they're solid franchises but Universal can create new IPs that can draw as much as an Alien film could at this point. I'd prefer they go creative and fresh instead of buying properties.
 
To be honest, while I don't think Disney will "Disneify" Fox (because, look at what Lucasfilm and Marvel Entertainment has put out); but I do think they will have a reduced amount of films per year.

A reason why I think Comcast would've been good, primarily for IP's like Alien, Predator, Apes, Die Hard, Avatar; is that those are films that can lead to larger franchises; which is something Universal needs (Jurassic can't be the only major tent-pole). I feel they will lose some of that power when they go to Disney, and while I don't negate them not being used, I have a feeling there will be a lesser amount of those said films.
I'd disagree about the Disneify part.

Marvel + Lucasfilm have changed a lot since the buyout. There's a lot more merchandising, integration into the parks, TV series... those IPs are being tested near their limits. Disney is amazing at taking an IP and getting it to toe the line of over-saturation. I can't think of a single Fox IP that could adapt that well. Disney's outlets (the networks, the parks) would feel a lot different if Fox IPs started popping up all over the place.
 

One more reason to hope this deal falls through. I'm ready for the Iger regime to end.

I'm not a fan of Disney fully integrating Fox. They're really different companies. Disney doesn't take as many risks on movies and I can't see most of Fox's IPs working in theme parks.

Plus, I'm a fan of competition. Fox and Disney as a mega-studio just means less movies for us.

I agree with all of this.
 
I don't see Fox's output significantly changing under Disney. Including this month's releases, their 2017 slate has consisted of 14 movies:

Alien
The Boss Baby
Captain Underpants
A Cure for Wellness
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Ferdinand
The Greatest Showman
Kingsman
Logan
The Mountain Between Us
Murder on the Orient Express
The Post
Snatched
War for the Planet of the Apes

With two of these being Dreamworks movies and one a Blue Sky film, Fox probably won't release any animated movies once they're under Disney. Additionally, the X-Men movies may or may not operate in the MCU, so Fox is probably off the hook here as well. With those four removed, they're down to nine movies, and none of their blockbuster fare this year has been aimed towards families unless The Greatest Showman is considered a blockbuster. They have 13 movies scheduled for next year right now, and that could go up if there's another smaller budget movie like The Post:

Maze Runner 3
Red Sparrow
Love, Simon
The New Mutants
Deadpool 2
Alita
The Predator
The Darkest Minds
The Kid Who Would be King
Bad Times at the El Royale
Dark Phoenix
Widows
Bohemian Rhapsody

Next year's lineup is even less appealing to families and kids than this year's. The Kid WWBK is the only family movie in the lineup, and there are at least five R-rated movies in here (Red Sparrow/Deadpool/Predator/El Royale/Widows) with the potential for a few more (Love, Simon, New Mutants, and Bohemian Rhapsody). Disney will likely just keep Fox as the R/adult PG-13 division save for a few exceptions.
 
To be honest, while I don't think Disney will "Disneify" Fox (because, look at what Lucasfilm and Marvel Entertainment has put out); but I do think they will have a reduced amount of films per year.

A reason why I think Comcast would've been good, primarily for IP's like Alien, Predator, Apes, Die Hard, Avatar; is that those are films that can lead to larger franchises; which is something Universal needs (Jurassic can't be the only major tent-pole). I feel they will lose some of that power when they go to Disney, and while I don't negate them not being used, I have a feeling there will be a lesser amount of those said films.

I can see the Disneyfication of the MCU movies quite a bit though. They are very generic and while good-hearted and well-thought out, has too much humor and have a straight storyline as well as being over-saturated. That's still old-school as it has for the past 50 years. They're purely designed and aimed to be kid-friendly. It's not gonna help the fact Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is the main distributor of these movies, a studio known to be family and kid-friendly since 1953. Touchstone Pictures isn't used significantly recently, more importantly, since the last R-rated movie (and for the Mouse) Fright Night came out 7 years ago. So you could say Disney hasn't been on the R-rated trend since its acquisition of Marvel and Lucasfilm while other major studios within the Hollywood area continue to do so as normal. Looking at the first Iron Man film and TIH, both films tend to be violent and more serious with little to no humor in them, but since Disney bought up Marvel, they drive straight into the generic, bland humorous plot in order to increase merchandising among kids and families for the movie and theme parks.

Meanwhile, Fox started the popular R-rated CBM trend with Deadpool, a raunchy, hilarious, over-the-top violence Marvel movie and then did it again with Logan, a gritty, western-like setting from X-Men. Both movies are violent and have the tendency to say F-words and other things that wouldn't appear under the MCU. Even MCU TV shows, they don't go as far as saying the F-word and any of the thing like that, it seems good and basic and fits well with most of the cable drama shows. Some characters have some nude and butt scenes, but I don't think they go as far as what Deadpool does. Guarantee that X-Men would be incorporated into the MCU sooner or later, effectively terminating the Rated -R CMB movies, leaving Sony as the only hope to create an R-rated CMB for the Spider-Man universe.

Another problem is that Disney isn't known for allowing personal freedom regarding the MCU. Disney has a formula for its Marvel movies. They want them to be done in a very specific manner and directors just generally do not like working for the House of Mouse. Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, At World's End, Scott Pilgrim vs the World) was told he would get to make this cool heist film called Ant-Man. But once he began production, Disney and Marvel Studios executives started asking him to add in other heroes into the mix and to make sure there's a supervillain and to make sure it links into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. By the time it was all said and done, Ant-Man was a mess of a film. Edgar Wright left the project. Peyton Reed takes it over (whose biggest film by this point is Bring it On). It starts off with that heist theme but then just transforms into the generic Marvel origins story (X-Hero faces off against the evil version of X-Hero).

In addition, Joss Whedon dropped out after Disney interfered with him on Age of Ultron. Whedon wanted to have the farmhouse scene in the movie (Hawkeye's awkward family scene). He was told he was only permitted to have that scene if he included an excursion for Thor in which he had a vision of the movie that would be 5 years away. Kenneth Branagh left Thor 2 after realizing he wouldn't be able to have his vision. He was replaced with Patty Jenkins who tried doing the job but felt that it was too constraining and she had creative differences with Disney. She said she would do a superhero movie, just she wants the reigns. Ava Duverney was offered to direct Black Panther. She turned down the job after meeting with Kevin Fiege who was sort of telling her what the story was about and where it would go and all this sort of stuff.

MCU is crafted and created by Marvel Studios and headed by Kevin Feige. For every script, scene, music, character, addition, ad-libs, fights, etc, all have to be reviewed and approved by Kevin Feige, nothing else. It's just one of the examples why I think Disney/Fox is a bad deal, in addition to those outside of the X-Men universe. Disney is the biggest mega-corporation of the whole United States and when they get big, it gives them more leverage in the entertainment industry.

None of those IPs, except Avatar, are tent pole blockbuster ones though. An Alien movie came out this year and didn't exactly set the world on fire, they're solid franchises but Universal can create new IPs that can draw as much as an Alien film could at this point. I'd prefer they go creative and fresh instead of buying properties.

As much as people would love to do that, it's hard to create a new IP that is fresh and appealing to the general audience than buying up existing properties and utilizing them to the same extent effectively. It's far few and between. And while Fox outside of X-Men, Avatar, and Planet of the Apes doesn't have as much appealing movie IPs recently, they still have shows that can attract Comcast easily. Shows like American Horror Story (used twice for HHN), The Simpsons, Archer, Family Guy, American Dad, Bob's Burger, X-Files, and the like are something Universal lacks in the cable department. USA Network isn't that interesting anymore, as they show mostly law and order TV shows and nothing else. Universal is second in animation for the cinematic screen, but not great in animated TV shows. It's gotten so bad that Secret Life of Pets is nothing more than a ripoff off Toy Story, only with dogs instead of toys. There's a lot of ideas with an increased input of the Comcast/NBCUniversal deal with 21st Century Fox. Maybe not as much, but it does help them and would continue to allow personal freedoms for the directors who were denied a chance.
 
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