Disney Completes Fox Merger Welcoming X-Men, The Simpsons, Avatar, Deadpool And Many Others
It’s been a long time coming, but late last night, The Walt Disney Company finally completed its long gestating acquisition of 21st Century Fox, welcoming a host of new properties to the “mouse house”.
The acquisition includes 21st Century Fox’s film production businesses, including Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures, Fox Family and Fox Animation; Fox’s television creative units, Twentieth Century Fox Television, FX Productions and Fox21; FX Networks; National Geographic Partners; Fox Networks Group International; Star India; and Fox’s interests in Hulu, Tata Sky and Endemol Shine Group.
“This is an extraordinary and historic moment for us – one that will create significant long-term value for our company and our shareholders,” commented Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company. “Combining Disney’s and 21st Century Fox’s wealth of creative content and proven talent creates the preeminent global entertainment company, well positioned to lead in an incredibly dynamic and transformative era.”
What it doesn’t include is the news and less interesting bits of Fox, such as FOX “News” Channel, FOX Business Network, FOX Broadcasting Company, FOX Sports, FOX Television Stations Group, and sports cable networks FS1, FS2, Fox Deportes and Big Ten Network. These remain with the Murdoch family under the new Fox Corporation.
For fans, that means shows such as ‘The Simpsons’ are now Disney properties, along with James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ franchise, ‘Aliens’, ‘Predator’, ‘Planet Of The Apes’, ‘Buffy’ and ‘Angel’, ‘The X-Files’, the ’24’ franchise, ‘Family Guy’, ‘Die Hard’, ‘Deadpool’ (I’m sure this is a point which will come up in the next Deadpool movie!), and most importantly to Marvel fans, ‘The Fantastic Four’ and ‘X-Men’.
As you can tell from that list, not all of those properties are exactly “Disney friendly”. Whilst Disney do have their own streaming service, Disney+, due to launch later this year, that will be kept strictly “PG 13”. However, the acquisition also means that take a controlling 60% stake in US streaming service Hulu, along with retaining the FX broadcast brand, so they have a number of options for places to put the more grown up content on TV. On the film side, the 18-rated ‘Deadpool’ will continue, but will likely be kept separate from the rest of the Marvel brand.
What is most exciting for Marvel fans is the prospect of mutants finally making their way into the MCU. This most likely marks the end for the current McAvoy/Fassbender franchise because Disney will want to restart things. That also means a new Wolverine is on the cards, because you don’t spend that much money on buying the X-Men and not use Wolverine. Kevin Feige, co-president of Marvel Studios, commented last year that they hadn’t started planning anything yet, but said the “notion of the characters coming back is great”, so you can bet they will be coming.
