Acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney

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Movies, Magic, Monopoly

On November 6, 2017, CNBC reported that The Walt Disney Company was negotiating a deal to acquire 21st Century Fox's filmed entertainment, cable entertainment, and direct broadcast satellite divisions. Due to Disney already owning ABC, FCC regulations required that this deal exclude some of Fox's TV networks which were spun off into "Fox Corporation". On November 16, it was revealed that Disney faced a bidding war against Comcast, Verizon, and Sony to acquire Fox. The deal was finalized on March 20, 2019. In early 2020, Disney renamed their Fox assets to remove Fox from the name since some assets were spun off into Fox Corporation. 20th Century Fox is now 20th Century Studios and Fox Searchlight Pictures is now Searchlight Pictures due to the renaming.

Why It's Not Magic

  1. The fact that this is a horizontal merger (unlike Disney's previous acquisitions) makes it more evident that Disney is trying to monopolize the film, or to a bigger extent, the entertainment industry. This gives Disney a lot more control in the film market which means more films can affect other businesses due to Disney's stricter budgeting such as demanding higher box office revenue cuts.
    • As a result of having much more control in the film market, Disney also has a lot more control over what projects for movies will and won’t be approved to go ahead and be made.
  2. Disney mainly did this deal just to help expand Disney+'s library (also for being less interested in Fox's actual production capabilities). Disney even said that they wouldn't have made this deal if it weren't for Disney+, showing what Disney thinks of 20th Century Fox.
    • Despite Disney+ being the main reason for the acquisition, some Fox content on the service has been removed mainly due to rights issues and pre-existing contracts with premium channels (such as HBO and Starz in the USA). Thankfully, this issue mainly applies to the United States.
  3. Disney doing this deal to expand Disney+'s library also gives them more control over the streaming market, as they get to decide on what will and won't be approved to be made for direct-to-streaming movies and TV shows. Because of that, they have started turning most of the studio's franchises into milking devices, such as The Simpsons, Home Alone, Ice Age, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Night at the Museum, etc.
  4. In response to economic issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney shut down 20th Century Studios' beloved animation studio, Blue Sky Studios, showing that they failed to give it the same recognition as Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios although the studio already can't keep doing business further in the future due to the losses they had to bear from not letting go of the Ice Age franchise. This closure laid off 450 employees and has led to the cancellation of Nimona. Fortunately about a year after Blue Sky closed, Nimona was acquired by Netflix and Annapurna even with it being animated by DNEG for 2023.
    • It makes little sense for Blue Sky to get shut down anyways since the studio doing just fine and they still kept a good sum of money, despite the losses of Spies in Disguise and Ice Age: Collision Course, because of that, it was pretty likely that Disney only shut down the studio just so they can take their franchises and turn them into milking devices, as mentioned below.
    • Just for insulting value after the closure of Blue Sky occurred, Disney has started to milk some of the studio's franchises such as Ice Age and Rio. This shows that Disney doesn't value Blue Sky Studios' movies as creative works of art only as a means to boost profits although one can say that Blue Sky Studios got a taste of their own medicine over their milking of the Ice Age franchise.
    • In light of Disney's controversial handling of Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, three former Blue Sky executives testified that Disney pushed back against the LGBT elements in Nimona.
  5. Disney changing The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild and Diary of a Wimpy Kid from 20th Century Studios releases to Walt Disney releases can show that they want to take all the credit for 20th Century Studios' work despite barely having anything to do with any of their work before the acquisition. They even go far as to slap their names above the logos for the properties they own, like what they did with Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.
    • This also caused most of their franchises to go downhill due to them having no involvement with 20th Century Studios.
  6. Speaking of being laid off, after the merger was completed it was reported that up to 4,000 employees would lose their jobs because of this. The top executives given two to six months' notice of being laid off include 20th Century Fox film president of domestic distribution Chris Aronson, president of worldwide marketing Pamela Levine, co-president of marketing Kevin Campbell, chief content officer Tony Sella, international distribution president Andrew Cripps, executive vice president of corporate communications Dan Berger, executive vice president of legal affairs and executive vice president of Fox Stage productions Bob Cohen, executive vice president of publicity Heather Phillips, 20th Television president Greg Meidel and Fox Consumer Products boss Jim Fielding.
  7. Disney ended Family Guy syndication on Adult Swim. While it may not sound like a big deal since it's still on other networks, this syndication was rather important to the show and was iconic to the network, because that was what saved the show from cancellation when the show started to decline in the early 2000s.
    • This would be worsened by the fact that the last episode to air on the network was "Stewie is Enceinte", ending this syndication on a bad note.
    • Adult Swim is also set to lose Bob's Burgers in 2023 because of this deal.
  8. Because of this acquisition, this will probably affect the presence of The Simpsons at Universal Studios theme parks in Hollywood and Orlando. They have a whole area dedicated to The Simpsons. They have its marquee attraction, The Simpsons Ride, several dining and shopping options, and walkaround characters. Rumors say that The Simpsons will be gone from Universal theme parks by 2028. Similar to how Family Guy and Bob's Burgers left Adult Swim, this shows that Disney doesn't want to pay any licensing fees to any of its competitors when it comes to their IPs.
  9. Disney has been making Disney+ original films from franchises that were part of this acquisition and such unfortunately was handled poorly with films such as Home Sweet Home Alone, Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2021), The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild and Cheaper by the Dozen (2022). This further showed that they only think of 20th Century Fox as a money-making business and not as a studio with plenty of works of art given that they’re making another Night at the Museum movie. Hell, even 2021's Diary of a Wimpy Kid was much more tolerable compared to the rest so far despite being dumbed down.
    • The fact that Disney is mostly only paying attention to the big franchises such as Home Alone, Night at the Museum, and Ice Age also further proves that Disney in general is becoming more and more creatively bankrupt and more dependent on the sequels, remakes, and reboots.
    • The worst part is that Disney could have breathed new life into these franchises made them more relevant again, and taken them in new directions, but instead, they just dug them further into the ground.
  10. Disney also cancelled a sequel to Alita, a cyberpunk movie, and the Greatest Showman film. This shows that Disney doesn't want Fox to make sequels to movies unless it’s a popular franchise and something they know people are familiar with.
  11. Disney has also canceled lots of X-Men movies that had great potential such as one based on X-23.
    • To make things worse, the X-Men series ended on a sour note twice with the first being Dark Phoenix and the latter being New Mutants.
    • X-Men might not have always been good, but there were still a ton of possibilities that Fox could have taken with the franchise if the rights had not been reverted to Marvel Studios.
    • This also gives Disney even more control over the superhero genre than they did before. While this could make the Marvel Cinematic Universe consistently good over time, without much other competition from other studios (except for DC), it could result in the MCU becoming even more formulaic than before.
  12. Disney also canceled and rejected plenty of non-sequels and adaptions that everyone will hope to see like The Boogeyman (an adaptation of Stephen King's 1978 short story of the same name; although it eventually returned for 2023), Mega Man (Netflix got the rights), The Witch Boy and Play-Doh (Entertainment One got the rights to it).
  13. As a result of the merger, screenings of old films produced by Fox have been restricted heavily, with several theatre chains reporting that Fox's back catalog was no longer available to them and even Little Theatre in Rochester, New York being barred by Disney from screening Fight Club in the future.
  14. They have been using The Simpsons to make boring promotional shorts just to show off how much they own, such as The Simpsons in Plusaversary for example.
  15. Unfortunately, starting in 2023, the theatrical releases for 20th Century Studios will be scaled back with 7 direct-to-streaming releases for Disney+ and Hulu a year, and only 3 theatrical releases a year, which isn't much. This is one of the many reasons why Disney is both the reason for this acquisition and trying to eliminate competition so that all theatrical movies are Disney movies.
  16. Disney often blames 20th Century Studios for losing money, since many of their films flop in theatres when in reality, it's not even their fault when it comes to box office results.
  17. Finally, the most infamous decision made post-acquisition was to rename 20th Century Fox to the less iconic 20th Century Studios and Fox Searchlight Pictures to Searchlight Pictures, which was completely unnecessary, as the Fox TV channels (including the disreputable Fox News) were named after the film studio, not vice versa. 20th Century Fox is the name the studio had ever since it was formed in 1935 from a merger between two studios, one of them was named after its founder, William Fox (born in 1879 in Hungary), and it has remained an iconic name. Some say it could've been more tolerable if it was renamed back to its original name, 20th Century Pictures, as that was what it used to be called before the Fox merger.
  18. Because of all these reasons above, it reaches the point where 27% of our blockbuster entertainment comes from a single major movie studio. [1]

Magical Qualities

  1. Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox has a lot of potential for all the reasons listed below.
  2. This deal would benefit greatly one of Disney's properties Marvel Studios in which it would help incorporate the former Fox properties, the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the former receiving disappointing releases and especially the latter having a poor track record of film adaptations. Given Disney's reputation on the Marvel license, they also did well with Sony's Spider-Man which could give the Fox properties some revitalization.
    • This also confirmed that Deadpool 3 is in the works with Ryan Reynolds returning as the lead character with the film still aiming to be R-rated.
  3. This also opens the doors for Anastasia to become a Disney Princess, marking the first Disney Princess to be acquired as the first Russian Disney Princess, the first Slavic Disney Princess, and the first Disney Princess to come from Eastern Europe. This is notable due to Don Bluth and Disney being fierce rivals ever since Don Bluth resigned from Disney in 1979.
  4. Despite failing to give Blue Sky the recognition they deserved, Disney was at least kind enough to release Blue Sky's last finished project, Ice Age: Scrat Tales, on Disney+.
    • Because of that, they managed to secure the rights to Scrat.
  5. This opens the possibility of re-releasing the unaltered versions of the original Star Wars trilogy, which is something that Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams have shown interest in doing.
    1. It should be noted that although 20th Century Fox's distribution rights for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy were set to expire in May 2020 as a result of Disney buying Lucasfilm, they were still set to retain full distribution rights for A New Hope.
  6. Thanks to them when Disney+ came out in 2019, they listened to Simpsons fans' criticisms with the 16:9 cropped episodes of older Simpsons episodes from 1989-2009 and gave viewers the option to watch the 4:3 produced episodes in their original format or the widescreen/cropped version on May 30th, 2020. That does show Disney had seen full potential with The Simpsons in a good way there.
  7. With the Simpsons being owned by Disney, the chances of a second movie seem higher than ever.
  8. Disney still made some good or at the very least decent movies with Fox like Nomadland, Summer of Soul, Free Guy, The Night House, The Last Duel, The French Dispatch, Ron's Gone Wrong, West Side Story (2021), The Bob's Burgers Movie, Prey, and Nightmare Alley.
  9. Believe it or not, Bob Iger (before he was replaced by Chapek) did see potential in Blue Sky Studios as seen in here and here. If he was still president, then Blue Sky Studios wouldn't shut down and may have worked on the projects they considered doing like Nimona (though Netflix now acquires the rights), Foster, Mutts, Spore, etc.

Assets

Assets that were acquired by Disney

  • 20th Century Fox (Renamed to 20th Century Studios on January 17, 2020)
    • Fox Family (Now 20th Century Family)
    • 20th Century Fox Animation (Now 20th Century Animation)
    • Fox Searchlight Pictures (Now Searchlight Pictures)
    • Fox Studios Australia
    • Fox Stage Productions (Became Buena Vista Theatrical division within Disney Theatrical Group on July 3, 2019)
    • Minority stake of Boom! Studios
    • 20% stake of Regency Enterprises
  • 20th Century Fox Television (Renamed to 20th Television on August 10, 2020)
    • Original iteration of 20th Television (Merged into Disney-ABC Domestic Television)
    • Fox Television Animation (Renamed to 20th Television Animation on March 30, 2021)
    • Fox 21 Television Studios (Became the second Touchstone Television on August 10, 2020, but later merged into 20th Television in December 2020)
  • Fox Networks Group
    • FX Networks
      • FX Productions
    • 73% stake of National Geographic Partners
    • Fox Networks Group Latin America
    • Fox Networks Group Europe
    • Fox Networks Group Africa
    • Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific
  • Star India
  • 30% stake in Hulu (Disney later acquired more stake of Hulu from other shareholders. They now own a 67% stake with the other 33% being owned by NBC Universal.)
  • 30% stake of Tata Sky
  • Minority investment in DraftKings

Acquired assets that were later shut down

  • Blue Sky Studios-Shut down on April 7, 2021, due to economic issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their last film was Spies in Disguise, the only Blue Sky film to be released under Disney's ownership.
  • Fox 2000 Pictures-Reported the day after the acquisition. They were shut down on May 14, 2021, after releasing The Woman in the Window. Their last film released in theatres was The Art of Racing in the Rain.
  • All the Fox channels were shutdown in Southeast Asia in April 2021.

Assets kept by Fox Corporation

  • Fox Broadcasting Company
  • Fox Television Stations Group
    • MyNetworkTV
  • Fox News Media Group
  • Fox Sports Media Group (the United States only)
    • Fox Sports 1
    • Fox Sports 2
    • Fox Deportes
    • 51% stake of Big Ten Network
  • Fox Studio lot in Century City (Fox Corporation owns the real estate via Fox Studio Lot, LLC, although it is leased to Disney for the newly renamed 20th Century Studios)
  • Fox's Roku assets

Trivia

  • The 1998 Simpsons episode, When You Dish Upon a Star, has a shot of the 20th Century Fox logo with the subtext, "A Division of Walt Disney Co." which was yet another case of The Simpsons predicting the future. This was long before Disney even made any major acquisitions apart from ABC.
  • Comcast winning the bidding war for 21st Century Fox would have also resulted in the Fox Corporation spinoff since Comcast already owns NBC.
  • Included in this acquisition is the Die Hard franchise. Long before this acquisition was made, Disney handled the international distribution of Die Hard With a Vengeance through their Hollywood Pictures banner.
  • The Chronicles of Narnia franchise was owned by Disney but later sold to Fox, which returned to Disney after they purchased Fox.
  • Disney was originally going to make a film adaptation of Mr. Popper's Penguins, until it ended up getting sold to Fox. Disney also got the rights to the film after their acquisition of Fox.

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