Well, That's One Way for Marvel to Get X-Men Back (Disney Acquisition of Fox)

[Battlelyon]

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[BusSport]

Official Disney press release: "The Walt Disney Company To Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., After Spinoff Of Certain Businesses, For $52.4 Billion In Stock"

Reuters: "Disney buying Fox film, TV units for $52 billion in digital push"

Washington Post: "What the huge Disney-Fox deal means for geeks, from the ‘X-Men’ to ‘The Avengers’"

I'll just reiterate what I wrote earlier:

I'm absolutely thrilled about this! Even if Fox did good with spinoffs like Wolverine and Deadpool, they mishandled the core X-Men franchise, and Fantastic Four under Fox has been nothing but disaster after disaster.

X-Men and Fantastic Four under Marvel would be absolutely incredible. And it's not just X-Men and FF themselves, but making the associated characters available for the greater MCU: Doctor Doom, Galactus, Silver Surfer, the Shi'ar, etc.

This would also have a significant positive effect on the comics themselves, reversing Marvel Comics from their dialing-back of the X-Men and FF due to not wanting to promote studio rivals.

 

[calsnowskier]

I wonder if they may add an Easter egg to Black Panther about Doom. He could be the bridge for bringing in the FF to the MCU.

Doom is mentioned in BP

Doom is the main baddie in BP2, F4 is brought in to assist (skipping their origin story).

F4 movie comes after BP2.

 

[BusSport]

I wonder if they may add an Easter egg to Black Panther about Doom. He could be the bridge for bringing in the FF to the MCU.

Doom is mentioned in BP

Doom is the main baddie in BP2, F4 is brought in to assist (skipping their origin story).

F4 movie comes after BP2.

Given that Latveria is an Eastern European country, not an African one, my bet is that either:

- Latveria is going to be revealed to be a neighbor of Sokovia (the country that MCU Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Zemo are from) under Doom's control that ends up conquering Sokovia in the chaos stemming from the destruction during Age of Ultron, becoming a major world power in the process

OR

- that they're going to retcon Doom a bit, like they did with SW/QS/Zemo, so that he is originally a native Sokovian, who then rises to power in the aforementioned chaos, seizes absolute power, renames Sokovia to Latveria, and then remakes Sokovia into a world power (another small but extremely technologically advanced country like Wakanda)

 

[BusSport]

Another thought occurs to me:

In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony was moving out of Stark/Avengers Tower. At the time, there was a lot of fan speculation that the writers were having that happen so that Norman Osborn could take over the Tower, and it could become the headquarters of OsCorp.

But given today's news, what if it instead becomes the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building?

 

[Battlelyon]

Disney CEO hints at future streaming package bundle for Hulu, stand-alone services

That means most Marvel, Pixar, Disney and Lucasfilm series will not exist on Hulu. They will remain exclusively on Disney’s upcoming stand-alone streaming app, which is set to launch sometime in 2019 for a price substantially below what Netflix currently charges subscribers.

 

[calsnowskier]

Disney CEO hints at future streaming package bundle for Hulu, stand-alone services

That means most Marvel, Pixar, Disney and Lucasfilm series will not exist on Hulu. They will remain exclusively on Disney’s upcoming stand-alone streaming app, which is set to launch sometime in 2019 for a price substantially below what Netflix currently charges subscribers.

“substantially below”

Netflix is what, $12? So this new Disney service would be $7? If they have consistent origin content, AND a large library that includes next day ABC and FOX broadcast shows, I could go for that. As long as the shows are sans commercials.

 

[Battlelyon]

“substantially below”

Netflix is what, $12? So this new Disney service would be $7? If they have consistent origin content, AND a large library that includes next day ABC and FOX broadcast shows, I could go for that. As long as the shows are sans commercials.

Well not exactly,

Iger added that there’s no reason those streaming services couldn’t exist under one umbrella, but added that the company’s “current thinking is not to do that.” That means Hulu will exist for content that doesn’t belong to one of Disney’s four major core family brands: Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios. Content from ABC television or more mature series from 20th Century Fox, like FX series, will all exist on Hulu.

 

[jjc2009]

Given that Latveria is an Eastern European country, not an African one, my bet is that either:

- Latveria is going to be revealed to be a neighbor of Sokovia (the country that MCU Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Zemo are from) under Doom's control that ends up conquering Sokovia in the chaos stemming from the destruction during Age of Ultron, becoming a major world power in the process

OR

- that they're going to retcon Doom a bit, like they did with SW/QS/Zemo, so that he is originally a native Sokovian, who then rises to power in the aforementioned chaos, seizes absolute power, renames Sokovia to Latveria, and then remakes Sokovia into a world power (another small but extremely technologically advanced country like Wakanda)

The problem with FF is that Fox technically only owns the distribution rights. German owned Constantin films owns the character rights. Now it means that Constantin can keep making FF movies, but only Disney would be able to distribute them. This does not give the rights to use FF back to Disney to use as they see fit in the MCU. They're either going to have to put out a film with Constantin or buy the rights back.

 

[BusSport]

The problem with FF is that Fox technically only owns the distribution rights. German owned Constantin films owns the character rights. Now it means that Constantin can keep making FF movies, but only Disney would be able to distribute them. This does not give the rights to use FF back to Disney to use as they see fit in the MCU. They're either going to have to put out a film with Constantin or buy the rights back.

The exact terms of the contracts have never been revealed. It has never been confirmed that Constantin still owns the production rights. And even if they do, they very possibly only own partial production rights (the contracts were significantly reworked when Constantin entered into a partnership with Fox, and Fox very possibly bought out at least part of those production rights). But for the sake of argument, for the rest of this post, let's proceed under the assumption (which is not an assumption that should be taken for granted) that Constantin still owns the production rights.

Then Constantin is still no problem at all. Disney very likely already has a handshake deal with Constantin. That's strongly indicated in the language of Disney's press release on the merger, which repeatedly mentions bringing Fantastic Four into the MCU as if it is a done deal with no problem.

Constantin is fundamentally different from Fox in that Constantin has never been a major film studio. Before the merger, Fox was trying to establish their own movie universe, and as a major studio, Fox credibly had the power to do that, but Constantin simply has never had that sort of clout. Constantin doesn't even have the resources to produce an AAA-big-budget Hollywood blockbuster FF on their own. That's why the only FF they produced on their own was the notorious never-wide-released Roger Corman low-budget one. That was why Constantin partnered with Fox, because they didn't have the infrastructure to do a big-budget FF on their own. Without distribution rights, which Disney would own with the Fox merger done, Constantin can't profit from FF on their own.

And now that Disney owns the rights that Fox did, Constantin would be throwing away free money to want to stand in the way of bringing FF into the MCU, which is a proven massive-moneymaking franchise, and Constantin's owners aren't that stupid; they didn't get where they are by throwing away free money. All Constantin has to do is pretty much the same thing Sony did with Spider-Man: let Marvel do as they will with it, and they will collect massive checks from the box office without having to do anything.

On top of that, there are rumors that Constantin's owners want to pull out of movies and focus on sports (similar to how Fox isn't ceasing to exist, just putting their focus on other businesses likes news), in which case, they would just sell the rights back to Disney.

And in the case that Constantin decides to hurt themselves for unexplainable reasons and refuse to work with Disney, Disney can just refuse to distribute the movie, making it unproduceable, and without a movie being produced, the rights will eventually lapse, giving Disney full control. (Actually, Disney could even threaten to do that intentionally, to force Constantin's hand.)

 

[jjc2009]

The exact terms of the contracts have never been revealed. It has never been confirmed that Constantin still owns the production rights. And even if they do, they very possibly only own partial production rights (the contracts were significantly reworked when Constantin entered into a partnership with Fox, and Fox very possibly bought out at least part of those production rights). But for the sake of argument, for the rest of this post, let's proceed under the assumption (which is not an assumption that should be taken for granted) that Constantin still owns the production rights.

Then Constantin is still no problem at all. Disney very likely already has a handshake deal with Constantin. That's strongly indicated in the language of Disney's press release on the merger, which repeatedly mentions bringing Fantastic Four into the MCU as if it is a done deal with no problem.

Constantin is fundamentally different from Fox in that Constantin has never been a major film studio. Before the merger, Fox was trying to establish their own movie universe, and as a major studio, Fox credibly had the power to do that, but Constantin simply has never had that sort of clout. Constantin doesn't even have the resources to produce an AAA-big-budget Hollywood blockbuster FF on their own. That's why the only FF they produced on their own was the notorious never-wide-released Roger Corman low-budget one. That was why Constantin partnered with Fox, because they didn't have the infrastructure to do a big-budget FF on their own. Without distribution rights, which Disney would own with the Fox merger done, Constantin can't profit from FF on their own.

And now that Disney owns the rights that Fox did, Constantin would be throwing away free money to want to stand in the way of bringing FF into the MCU, which is a proven massive-moneymaking franchise, and Constantin's owners aren't that stupid; they didn't get where they are by throwing away free money. All Constantin has to do is pretty much the same thing Sony did with Spider-Man: let Marvel do as they will with it, and they will collect massive checks from the box office without having to do anything.

On top of that, there are rumors that Constantin's owners want to pull out of movies and focus on sports (similar to how Fox isn't ceasing to exist, just putting their focus on other businesses likes news), in which case, they would just sell the rights back to Disney.

And in the case that Constantin decides to hurt themselves for unexplainable reasons and refuse to work with Disney, Disney can just refuse to distribute the movie, making it unproduceable, and without a movie being produced, the rights will eventually lapse, giving Disney full control. (Actually, Disney could even threaten to do that intentionally, to force Constantin's hand.)

Good points. I'm also wondering whether they think it is more profitable to sell the rights outright, or just continue to partner with Disney.

The problem with the FF is that they've mucked both offerings so badly, it almost needs another re-boot, but that in and of itself is tricky. But the holder of the rights to the FF also holds the rights to some of the better villains and side characters that would make better Marvel stories down the road, most notably Silver Surfer and Dr. Doom.

I was honestly surprised they were able to use the Watchers in GotG2 because they originated in the FF comics.

 

[BusSport]

I was honestly surprised they were able to use the Watchers in GotG2 because they originated in the FF comics.

Apparently, before this merger, Disney and Fox had already come to mutually-beneficial deals regarding swapping/sharing certain assets.

Specifically, originally they had the following rights:

- Disney: TV rights
- Disney & Fox (shared rights): Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch film rights
- Fox: Ego, Skrulls, and Watchers film rights

Disney and Fox apparently came to the following multipart deals before the merger:

- Disney would let Fox produce Gifted, Hellfire (which ended up unproduced in development hell, pardon the pun), and Legion even though Disney held the TV rights.
- Fox would let Disney use Ego and Watchers in GotG2 and Skrulls in Captain Marvel.
- Disney would let XMU trailers run before MCU films, and Fox would let MCU trailers run before XMU films.
- Fox would focus on Quicksilver (hence why Scarlet Witch was left out of XMU films, except with a tangential mention of a sister that Fox would later deny even referred to Scarlet Witch), while Disney would focus on Scarlet Witch (hence why Quicksilver was killed off in Age of Ultron). Fox and Disney basically split the twins to avoid stepping on each others' toes.

Basically, it was a trade of characters for TV series, and mutually-beneficial cooperation on other things.

 

[SDGuy73]

Or Image will give it a try with the Invincible Universe. I could see Invincible alone provide 6 or 7 movies. Then you could add a Robot movie and a Savage Dragon movie or 4.

I was a big fan of Image back in the 90's. I've been hoping they would get in the movie business. Spawn is finally coming after a 20-year wait. Savage Dragon would be wild.

Valiant has movies in the works!!

 

[calsnowskier]

I was a big fan of Image back in the 90's. I've been hoping they would get in the movie business. Spawn is finally coming after a 20-year wait. Savage Dragon would be wild.

Valiant has movies in the works!!

An Invincible movie was announced about a year or so back, but I can’t find any new info on it. Maybe it was scrapped?

 

[BusSport]

A good sign that the deal is still on track: Marvel is bringing back the Fantastic Four comic:

 

[BusSport]

Or maybe not... Comcast is trying again:

"Exclusive: Comcast prepares all-cash bid to gate-crash Disney-Fox deal"

 

[BusSport]

Another article:

"Comcast preparing hostile bid for Fox properties—and control of Hulu"

 

[Battlelyon]

Screw Comcast

 

[BusSport]

UH-OH!

Variety: "AT&T-Time Warner Merger Approved"

(Paving Way for Comcast Instead of Disney to Acquire Fox)

 

[SDGuy73]

UH-OH!

Variety: "AT&T-Time Warner Merger Approved"

(Paving Way for Comcast Instead of Disney to Acquire Fox)

This shit will never stop. It was just a couple years ago AT&T bought DirecTV. Monopoly bullshit!