Home Movie News Disney Buys Fox – What Did They Buy, And What Does It All Means For TV & Film?

Disney Buys Fox – What Did They Buy, And What Does It All Means For TV & Film?

by Dave Elliott
Disney Buys Fox - What Did They Buy, And It All Means For TV & Film

Disney Buys Fox – What Did They Buy, And It All Means For TV & Film

As most of you will probably have heard by now, Disney closed a massive deal worth £39bn today to buy a number of assets from Fox. The big questions now are, what did they get, and how does this affect things moving forward? Hopefully, we can answer those for you below!

What Did They Buy?

So what did the mouse get for its money (let’s face it, they probably found that £39bn just turning over sofa cushions!) Basically, the fun bits. It covers 21st Century Fox’s film and television studios, cable entertainment networks and international TV businesses – that includes Fox’s 39% ownership of Sky across Europe and India’s main network, Star. It also includes popular entertainment properties such as ‘X-Men’, ‘Avatar’, ‘Fantastic Four’, FX Networks and National Geographic. Additionally, it gives them a controlling stake in US streaming service Hulu, and also the distribution rights to the original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, which previously sat with Fox.

Fox keeps hold of Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FS1, FS2 and Big Ten Network into a newly listed company that will be spun off to its shareholders.

What Does It Mean For The Fox’s Bid To Take Over Sky?

If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you might be aware Fox were trying to buy out the remaining 61% of Sky it didn’t currently own. This was being stalled by the government, as they really weren’t happy with the idea of Fox having so much control, given the Fox (under the Murdoch family) rather dubious history. With the Murdoch’s out of the picture, if Disney wishes to continue the acquisition, it’s far more likely to go through. For a start, Disney isn’t the company that got caught hacking phones and doesn’t own any newspapers in the UK. Plus it’s seen as far more “wholesome” and less of an issue to competition.

What Does It Mean For The MCU?

Here is the most exciting part for us geeks. It puts all the Fox/Marvel properties back under control of the main Marvel Cinematic Universe. ‘X-Men’, ‘Deadpool’, and ‘Fantastic Four’ all can be mixed in and connected to ‘The Avengers’, ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ etc… as they are in the comic books. It remains to be seen how they might do this. My guess would be, we may be looking at a brand new bunch of ‘X-Men’ actors when it comes around.

Bear in mind, the Disney/Fox deal still has to go through US government approval, which could take anything up to a year. That means they have some time to figure out how they are going to handle things, but it makes for a very exciting cinematic comic book future!

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