As of today, Disney has officially bought Fox Studios for over 50 billion dollars. Well, $52.4 billion in assets, assuming $13.7 billion in debt, but that's what mergers are for. You get the good with the bad.
Anyways, many people are freaking out (again both good and bad) about the future of MCU, X-Men, and other titles from Fox. There is quite a bit that will be happening.
The Future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
With Disney buying Fox, they acquire many comic book properties, most notability the X-Men franchise. Of all the franchises Fox owns, this particular franchise has been quite successful over the decades it has been around. The acquisition of the franchise will shift the initial direction of the overall franchise, probably in the form of a franchise reboot, that may (or may not) be combined with the new generation of Marvel heroes like Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Spiderman, and Captain Marvel.
Either way, X-Men is a franchise that could be easily transitioned alongside other Marvel story lines, creating a consistent Marvel brand. The same could also be said of the Fantastic Four franchise as well!
The Marvel universe will also have the option to explore these newly acquired franchises in the streaming world along with Star Wars. For fans of the Marvel, this is a huge win in some respects, bringing more stories with less limitations in terms of character options and story directions.
The Dark Side of Disney-Fox Merger
The biggest danger with the merger of Disney and Fox, which if Twitter is any indication, has a lot of drawbacks. The biggest argument I see thrown around by creator's of movies and TV shows is the fear of losing original, creative storytelling. Companies like Netflix and Hulu offer a wide variety of content that isn't dependent on financial success in the same way Disney, Fox, or other movie companies are. Most large movie companies are publicly traded and rely on good box office revenue, DVD/digital sales, merchandise, etc. to keep the wheels going. Netflix and Hulu, although similar, rely on subscriptions and DVD rentals and are willing to amass more debt to deliver quality content. It's not that other companies aren't, but investors have more expectations with larger companies. Plus, Disney is more than just movies.
However, with this move, Disney will be taking up nearly 40% of the film market with their properties, which could lead to further saturation of the market, or worse, less creative stories. The need to push out as many movies as possible with the new franchises could lead to cutting corners creatively, only focused on delivering the next adventure with Silver Surfer.
This also leads to the next point...rating system.
Disney is known universally and family friendly, two words Deadpool knows very little about. Movies like Deadpool and Logan may also be avoided entirely in the future. It looks unlikely that Deadpool would be messed with this late in the game with principal photography pretty much finished and post production under way, but stranger things have happened. The consensus is Disney would not mess with anything currently underway, but future stories with more mature subject matter will definitely be under scrutiny.
There is probably a lot more to cover when it comes to the positives and negatives of Disney's merger, but for now, it really is a matter of waiting to see what will happen. My hope is it's all for the best of storytelling and the audience.
Let me know your thoughts on the Disney-Fox merger. Is it a good idea? Bad idea? You have no idea and just want to be heard...err...read? Is that a thing? I don't know, but if you do, let me know in the comments!
P.S. STAR WARS IS COMING TODAY/TOMORROW!!!
-J.J.
