Disney Acquires Most of 21st Century Fox (including Star Wars and Marvel characters)

[Kevin]

The long on-again/off-again talks between Disney and 21st Century Fox to sell the most of the company to Disney has finally paid off with an agreement reached. Fox Sports and Fox News will not be sold off and kept under control of the Murdoch family as they are now, everything else is going which includes 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000, and Fox Searchlight. The deal, at $53 billion(!), was just announced so it still needs to be pass US government regulators so it could be sometime before it completes.

The important question though is how does this affect us, the sci-fi/horror/fantasy loving fans of entertainment?

The answer is, in short (see bold sentences), is that a *lot* of movies & TV properties would now be controlled by the House of Mouse...

• All of the Star Wars movies, including the original trilogy, will now be under one corporate umbrella, Disney.
  • Up until now Disney only had distribution rights to the new trilogy (eps. 7, 8, & 9) while Fox had full permanent distribution rights to ep 4 (the original 1977 Star Wars) and distribution rights to the prequel trilogy (eps. 1, 2, & 3) and eps. 5 & 6 until 2020. Now everything Star Wars related would be under control of Disney. Who knows, this might mean Disney will respond to fans and release DVD/Blu-Ray versions of the original trilogy using the prints before Lucas went back and "enhanced" them. If nothing else we'll likely someday see a master boxed set of all three Star Wars trilogies!
• James Cameron's Avatar universe will be under the control of Disney.
  • There is some relationship already between Disney and Cameron, thanks to the new Avatar themed Pandora theme park in Orlando Disney, but now the actual movies & rights will also be under disney.
• Rights to Marvel comic characters like X-Men, Fantastic Four, Wolverine, and Deadpool will come back to Marvel/Disney.
  • The Marvel comics has produced as lot of popular characters over the years and agreements in the past have splintered where the rights to movies/tv shows based on those characters have ended up. Spider-man, for example, have infamously been held on to by Sony which why it was a big deal that he was in the last Avengers movies. The X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool movies have all been done by Fox and is why those characters have now shown up in any of the other Marvel universe movies. Now those characters will be back under the control of Marvel/Disney. Fox bet on adult oriented movies like Deadpool, rated R in the US, while Disney has kept their Marvel movies family oriented. It's unknown if, after the current round of Fox movies already under development, we'll see another R rated Marvel character movie.
• Fox shows like The Orville, The Simpsons, The X-Files, and American Horror Story (and many others) would now be under Disney.
• Fox movies like NIght at the Museum, Ice Age, the Planet of the Apes reboot movies, and Alvin & Chipmunks (and many others) would now be under Disney.
• Disney would have 2/3rds control of streaming service Hulu.
  • Currently Hulu is a three-way partnership between Disney, Fox, and Comcast. After the deal Disney would be 2/3rds owner. With Disney already moving their properties away from Netflix, and with Hulu doing more original programming like The Handsmaids Tale, a Disney backed Hulu could end up being viable competition to Netflix. Disney has previously announced their own streaming service, which is why they are being pulled away from Netflix, so it would need to be seen how it would fit into the overall strategy versus Hulu.
• Fox networks, like Sky in the UK, and The National Geographic channel, would now be under Disney.

I figure I'm good for a few years yet before I can plan for a marathon weekend of watching all 10 Star Wars movies (the 3 trilogies and Rogue One).

I better start stockpiling some popcorn.

 

[Tom]

What I fear is that Disney is associated with family films.
There are 'places' where Disney can't go in the art of a film.
I imagine there will be a "Dark Disney" with slightly more adult themes but the truly disturbing works will get tossed. Disney will continue its "agenda".

I see Disney establishing a new, softer expression of film. They will pour even more money into a select work of concepts causing a reduction in the quality of original works based films.

I see serious competition for Disney when the raw works are correctly produced by other companies.
While Disney films have a certain quality, they don't have the raw emotion that makes a film unique.

Can you imagine a Disney film of The Devil's Candy or A Clockwork Orange?
We will end up with films like Jurassic World that promise dinosaurs but deliver T-Rexs and veliciraptors that are likeable personalities.

I like the production qualiies but I would rather have something a bit closer to concept with the writer's work.

 

[Kevin]

I imagine there will be a "Dark Disney" with slightly more adult themes but the truly disturbing works will get tossed. Disney will continue its "agenda".

I doubt we'll ever see an R rated film under the Disney brand name but remember, Disney owns a *lot* of child companies and they in turn have released R rated films over the years. Touchstone was created by Disney back in the 80's to release adult oriented movies like Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Starship Troopers. At one point Miramax (which did very R rated stuff like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill) was under the Disney umbrella as well.

The problem though is that Disney in recent years has pulled back the number of R rated films released by it's owned companies and, more problematic, is that under DIsney they have had a strict PG-13 or below policy for the Marvel properties while Fox (Deadpool) had no such restriction.

Deadpool 2 is being released by Fox but going forward if there is a Deadpool 3 then Disney faces either pulling back the reigns to make it PG-13 friendly (which will likely alienate the fans), opening up the Marvel branding to R rated films, or doing a new Marvel offshoot for the R rated films. Either way, I think it'll be safe bet that regardless of the MPAA rating we won't be seeing any more X-Men movies like Days of Future Past where nearly all of the women Marvel characters ended up in lingerie onscreen and it'll be just violence & language in the R movies, if there are any, like Deadpool.

 

[Tom]

I imagine that money talks.
There could be a future where a Disney "owned" entity may be created just for the gritty 'R' rated stuff but it will not have the "Disney" public association or logo. They will find a way to get "that money".

From what I understand of Walt Disney, he wasn't the "R-rated" kind of man. However, a lot of his work for children would now be considered inappropriate. My Saturday morning cartoons are VERY different than my grandchildren's Saturday morning cartoons. Mickey Mouse was able to be brutal and sadistic compared to today's standards.

I don't mind Disney type movies but they are predictable and level and art is not really predictable and level.

Dimension Films is an American film production and distribution studio formerly owned by The Walt Disney Studios and now owned by The Weinstein Company. It was formerly used as Bob Weinstein's label within Miramax Films, to produce and release genre films. Chances are you have seen a few of these films. The studio's movie franchises include the later Halloween films, later Hellraiser films, Children of the Corn, Scream, Spy Kids and Scary Movie. The studio was founded by Bob Weinstein to distribute horror films, but was expanded to release other genres.

I imagine Disney will do something like a Dimension Films division for their darker more controversial adult themed productions. I just don't see how they can hope to make those big piles of money by alienating fans of R rated films?
I've read too many comments of people being miffed about a film being rated PG when it should have been R.

 

[sci-fi-dude]

I doubt we'll ever see an R rated film under the Disney brand name but remember, Disney owns a *lot* of child companies and they in turn have released R rated films over the years. Touchstone was created by Disney back in the 80's to release adult oriented movies like Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Starship Troopers. At one point Miramax (which did very R rated stuff like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill) was under the Disney umbrella as well.

The problem though is that Disney in recent years has pulled back the number of R rated films released by it's owned companies and, more problematic, is that under DIsney they have had a strict PG-13 or below policy for the Marvel properties while Fox (Deadpool) had no such restriction.

Deadpool 2 is being released by Fox but going forward if there is a Deadpool 3 then Disney faces either pulling back the reigns to make it PG-13 friendly (which will likely alienate the fans), opening up the Marvel branding to R rated films, or doing a new Marvel offshoot for the R rated films. Either way, I think it'll be safe bet that regardless of the MPAA rating we won't be seeing any more X-Men movies like Days of Future Past where nearly all of the women Marvel characters ended up in lingerie onscreen and it'll be just violence & language in the R movies, if there are any, like Deadpool.

I cant recall any "r" ratings with Disney? Lots of star wars, maybe space 1999, that would be nice, lost in space, the flying sub film, the possabilities are endless, Bravo!!!!