Disney is once again in talks to buy up most of 21st Century Fox, The Wall Street Journal reports. The house that Mickey built is considering a partial purchase of the media empire, from Fox’s movie studio to their television production arm of the company to some television channels, and most importantly the rights to thousands of Fox titles. This would be a huge win for Disney which is launching its own streaming service to combat Netflix, and even bigger win for superhero movie fans.
With this purchase, Disney would finally bring nearly all of the Marvel characters under one roof. The X-Men would shift from Fox, as would Deadpool and all the mutant characters therein, including the Fantastic Four (who would likely get another reboot). Spider-Man would still be retained by Sony, but they’re playing along, for the most part, letting Spidey be part of the main Marvel Cinematic Universe. Considering Disney would likely want to bring some original superhero programming to their potentially impressive streaming service, some mutants sound like exactly what they need. That, and a corner of the entire streaming market.
When Disney was first negotiating with the sons of Rupert Murdoch to buy up much of their company, Fox’s 30 percent stake in Hulu was a key part of the deal and that’s still the case. Currently, Disney, Fox, and Comcast own 30 percent stakes of Hulu with Time Warner bringing up the rear with 10 percent ownership. If Disney was able to buy Fox and bolster their impending streaming service with titles that people want to watch (beyond an infinite loop of Star Wars and animated classics), like The Simpsons, or old reruns of In Living Color, this would put them in direct competition with Netflix, who is losing all of Disney and Marvel’s content in 2019.
In case you’re wondering — due to antitrust laws, Disney, who owns ABC, would not be buying Fox’s broadcast network, nor would they buy Fox Sports, because Disney owns ESPN.
(Via The Wall Street Journal)