Disney’s $52.4B Acquisition of 21st Century Fox Now Official

It is now official, key assets of 21st Century Fox are now property of the Walt Disney Company. The event is predicted in The Simpsons back in season 10 episode 5, which aired on November 8, 1998.

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is the third-largest media conglomerate in the US, following Disney and Comcast. This is one of the biggest deals in history and provides Disney with greater power to fight off other digital rivals such as Netflix. The acquisition includes 21st Century Fox’ movie studios, as well as cable channels FX and National Geographic. Moreover, the deal also includes Fox’ stakes in Hulu and Sky.

21st Century Fox itself is not going away. They are spinning off the Broadcasting Company, Fox News and Fox Sports into a new company.

The Disney Universe Gets Larger

Disney already owns several highly profitable media properties. Most notable of which is Marvel and Star Wars. The acquisition of Fox shores up their movie and television portfolio even further. Most importantly, it will help make Disney’s upcoming dedicated streaming service a formidable juggernaut. Although both Marvel and Star Wars have big budget movie offerings, they also are a treasure trove of intellectual properties which can be turned into TV shows. In fact, Marvel has proven that already with the success of their partnership with Netflix.

Both Star Wars and Netflix also have animated shows which appeal to younger audiences. Fox also owns The Simpsons and Family Guy, so having their decades worth of catalogue on the streaming service is a big deal.

MARVEL Characters Coming Home

The acquisition of Fox also brings back several Marvel character rights back home. This includes the X-men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool. This is great news for Marvel fans as the cinematic universe can actually have a complete roster now. Besides, Fox’ X-men adaptations were not as particularly good as the first movie back in 2000 (with the exception of Logan and Deadpool). Even more so with the Fantastic Four franchise which are embarrassingly bad.

The timing seems to be perfect for Marvel as well. After their epic Infinity War saga in 2019, their cinematic universe is ripe for a reboot. Since Infinity War also involves elements which change entire realities, Marvel could wipe the slate clean while still maintaining the storyline. In fact, Disney is so powerful now that they can practically do anything they want. They can even have a Mickey Mouse meets Deadpool cross-over movie if they want to.