The coming union of the Disney and Fox media empires is set to create a new nirvana for fanboys and -girls, one that reunites superheroes and sci-fi characters long separated by an energy barrier of corporate legalism.
Take, for instance, the fractured world of Marvel superheroes. For years, the X-Men (Wolverine, Storm, Professor X and the crew) and the Fantastic Four (Thing, Invisible Woman, et al) have battled bad dudes from the studios of 20th Century Fox. Meanwhile Iron Man, Black Widow and other Avengers vanquished villains in another corner of the galaxy run by Disney. Almost ne’er the twain did meet — though that could soon change.
In a related fashion, rights to the various “Star Wars” films have been scattered all over a galaxy far, far away; those will soon be unified under a powerful Galactic Emp-- er, well, Magic Kingdom.
Disney’s announcement Thursday that it’s buying most of movie goliath Fox for $52.4 billion in stock brings these once disparate franchises together, possibly for as-yet unplanned intergalactic dust-ups. Add the “Avatar” franchise to the blockbuster mix, and the company that launched Mickey Mouse will be an unavoidable presence at the box office and online if the deal goes through.
Online, Disney has announced plans to launch its own streaming service in 2019, after pulling titles like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and Disney’s “Moana” from Netflix’s streaming platform to move onto its own. After Fox’s deal to send its movies to HBO ends reportedly in 2022, its films will also move to the Disney streaming platforms.
Those old enough to remember the blaring 20th Century Fox opening to the original “Star Wars” (Episode IV) may no longer have to search far, far, away to find the other titles. The original was made and distributed by Fox, but it was a quirk of the series.
Episodes V, VI, I, II, and III were owned by Lucasfilm (bought by Disney in 2012) and distributed by Fox. You can only stream those first six movies endlessly if you buy them and register them through the not-terribly-popular UltraViolet system backed by several studios.
The Force may finally put these titles in one place.
Buying Fox will also give Disney a majority stake in streaming platform Hulu. The addition of Fox’s regional sports TV networks and National Geographic video programming in the deal could let the new service bundle hugely popular movie and TV franchises, local sports broadcast rights, and distribution platforms into one live online video empire.
At the same time, tech companies — particularly Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple — are making big investments in video streaming.
Disney also aims to expand the global audience of its cast of characters as it pulls in Fox’s London-based pay-TV broadcaster Sky, which has a pan-European audience, and Mumbai-based Star India.
