The Disney/Fox Deal: Questions and Consequences

It's just speculation on what the Disney/Fox deal means for Dragon Ball theatrical films in the future. Nothing to go crazy over.

Indeed. Given the abysmal box office, critical, and fan response to Evolution, I don't think Disney and Fox have any further plans for live-action Dragon Ball movies. If anything, I'd expect them to just take the safe route by continuing to distribute any further Dragon Ball anime movies that get made under the current contract rather than try to take risks by making more of their own, 500% non-canonical Dragon Ball stuff.

Edited by TrashJack on Aug 13th 2018 at 12:57:52 PM

I'm not even sure Disney cares about Dragon Ball at all, especially given how unkind they were to Digimon.

Dragon Ball is huge compared to Digimon

Apparently India has approved the Disney-Fox deal.

The poster who brought that article up says India is one of the hardest and also most important countries to get an approval for merger deals.

Is that true?

It is behind China I believe.

Most likely. One of the assets Disney is buying is Star India, which is a giant media conglomerate. Let's put it this way: China might block it because it is China and likes to be difficult. But India could have potentially have honest concerns. Thankfully Disney isn't half as active in India as Fox is or this could have created a problem.

Disney will release all of Fox’s movies that are complete or in production at the time of the acquisition.

Not really a surprise...they have to recoup the costs after all. Though "release" doesn't necessarily mean that they will release them in theatres.

Some word going around in Brazilian media that Disney plans to shutter Fox premium networks, specifically Fox Sports Brazil, within seven years after the deal closes. Fox Sports' operations there are to be transferred to ESPN. It's possible this is to try to get approval for the deal in Brazil.

Link here (Portuguese).

Murdoch is keeping the sports networks.

Expected. China seems to be the only major hurdle left.

I wonder if some sort of deal was worked out where Fox Sports Brazil transferred their sports rights to ESPN without actually selling the network.

I just realized: the conditions imposed upon Comcast following its buyout of NBCUniversal expired several days ago. That means Comcast can exercise their voting power in Hulu.

Even if Disney owns a majority stake in Hulu, Comcast could complicate their plans for the service if Disney can't put whatever they want on there if Comcast doesn't sign off on it.

Dragon Ball with an actual budget, a script written by someone who has at least a vague grasp of the source material, and a non-shitty cast seems like it'd be an easy slam dunk of a movie, tbh.

Honestly the biggest problem I could see to a competently made Dragon Ball movie is the tone problem.

UK vote Oct 19

For those seeking context:

Antitrust regulators at Europe have set a deadline of October 19th to determine whether they're okay with the Disney/Fox deal or not.

I'm assuming that if the EU regulators say yes, then the deal is one step closer to fruition...

So, the Hollywood Reporter has an interesting interview with bob iger ( https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bob-iger-disneys-streaming-service-james-gunn-star-wars-slowdown-1145493 ). The relevant part for the discussion here is mostly:

"The Fox deal has brought a lot of new people into the company. How much does the question of who will succeed you impact the discussion of how to integrate these people?"

"Very good question. We’re going to take the best people from both companies and that's who's going to basically be on the playing field for us. Meaning, talent will prevail. Fox Searchlight is a great example. You look at FX, Nat Geo. Yeah, you’re buying libraries and brands, but you're also buying the people. I'm not going to talk about specific people right now except to say that I've met with virtually the entire senior management team at Fox and I'm not only fully engaged with them on what the possibilities for them might be but I'm excited about the prospects."

So, downside, some people will be cut off (but we knew that already). Upside, Searchlight itself doesn't seem to be on the cutting list, he seems to be set on letting Searchlight be the best version of itself. Same for FX and National Geographics. Not that this is a surprise either, it is pretty much Disney's MO to not change a successful concept all too much other than perhaps giving it a better branding and some additional money at the right place (marvel is a good example for this).

Sounds like what we expected.

It looks like Comcast has won majority control of Sky in a secret auction in the UK. Most people expected this outcome.

Murdoch may not be pleased with this outcome, but Disney most likely is, because the last thing they want is more debt. Not to mention Fox/Disney more or less returned the favor to Comcast for making Disney pay more for those assets (and if Comcast want's Disney's 39% stake in Sky, they'll have to pay even more, along with making some major concessions).

The only major hurdle for Disney here is that it will be difficult for them to roll out their over-the-top services in Europe, especially since Hulu and ESPN aren't big names there.

Edited by Mario1995 on Sep 22nd 2018 at 4:09:40 AM

I said it before but I still don't get that part. I am not sure how well Sky does in the UK, but the concept of Pay TV never really caught on on the mainland, partly because we aren't really used to it. We have our state channels and advertising paid channels, so why pay for more when you already have more than enough programming freely available? The only thing with which Sky could ever brag with was the sport channels (especially the Bundesliga).

Sky Germany was originally a German broadcaster which went down in one of the most spectacular insolvencies in German history and after Sky bought what was left of it, the Murdochs had to bail it out no less than two times to rescue it from bankruptcy. I have no idea how well they are doing nowadays considering that they took the shares off the market eventually and turned it back into a Gmb H (basically a limited), but all this happened only a few years ago and my impression is, that Sky is still struggling to retain customers.

So all this in mind I never quite got why Disney was so interested in Sky in the first place. I mean, they want to focus on streaming, right, and Sky is not a streaming service. It is exactly the kind of business which is already struggling badly in the US because more and more cable cutters prefer to stream.

My personal explanation was that Iger was talking the worth of it up because Sky was so important for the Murdochs, and he had to sell the notion of paying up so much for the missing shares to the Disney shareholders, until Comcast jumped in. Though I personally wouldn't put it past Iger that he managed to mislead Comcast, intentionally or not. Bidding for Sky certainly made it more difficult for Comcast to bid for Fox at the same time.

But maybe I am missing something, big time. I actually thought that Star India was the true crown jewel in the deal and that Disney would have been better off to set up its own streaming service for the European market anyway.

Given that Fox's last offer was just two cents above Comcast's initial counter-offer in the auction, it seems like Disney and Fox didn't take the auction seriously and just baited Comcast to make a knockout bid so that they would be saddled with debt in the process (and make it harder for them to buy Disney's future stake in Sky without further piling up debt).

If Disney had won the auction, I bet you the stock price for Disney would've fallen dramatically because of the debt pile they would have to deal with (they already had to add up debt just to stop Comcast from derailing their deal with Fox; the possibility of Fox not getting complete control of Sky was already factored in to Disney's decision-making).

Edited by Mario1995 on Sep 22nd 2018 at 6:53:21 AM

Disney/ABC head Ben Sherwood to leave Disney after Fox deal is complete.

Current 21st Century Fox president and Fox Networks Group CEO Peter Rice is expected to replace him.

Guess when Sherwood realized Disney wasn't getting Sky he felt there was no longer any place for him in the company.

The question, though, is what does this mean for ABC post-FOX deal? Less news?

Edited by Mario1995 on Sep 22nd 2018 at 7:38:50 AM

Namor and Hulk rights?