The Disney/Fox Deal: Questions and Consequences

That really depends on what kind of deal WB has with Fox. Considering that the Caped Crusader was possible, maybe WB retained those rights already.

Plus, at the end of the day, money is money. As long as both win in the end even rival studios can deal with each other.

When one company buys another, or buys assets from another company, any pre-existing deals are still in effect. Whatever the deal with the Batman series that let them release it on home video will probably still be in effect. It might not be renewed, but it won't just be cancelled outright. Especially since there's probably a cancellation clause of some sort that neither party will want to do.

That will apply to DreamWorks Animation, as Fox only recently released the last movie in their deal, Captain Underpants, and I believe they have at least partial distribution rights to it and DWA's other films from The Croods on. If nothing is done regarding those rights, Disney may get them with the rest of 21st Century Fox when the deal closes.

edited 20th Dec '17 6:15:43 PM by jameygamer

Honestly, the distribution rights of Dream Works are a can of worms, mostly because pretty much every studio distributed for them at one point for one market or another - even Disney.

But DreamWorks & DWA split more than a decade ago.

They're technically under Universal's roof now, but the live-action side of DreamWorks is directly involved with Fox's The Post.

For some reason the public seems to forget that Comcast has Universal as its film division, so even if Disney doesn't but Fox, Universal will buy Fox and this discussion will still happen but even on a more severe scale as Universal has a bigger slate of films.

This consolation process would have happened no matter what. It is the direct result of the rise of the streaming services, and if you kept an eye on boy office results in the last years, you just knew that the market would shift and that there would be eventually less major studios around. The big surprise here is that Fox is the first one to fold, my money would have been on either Sony or Paramount being gobbled up by someone.

Isn't Paramount has Viacom as well as several Chinese companies (Shanghai Film Group and Huahua Media) to back its movie? This one isn't going anywhere.

Sony's parent company isn't exactly poor either. Doesn't mean that they won't shut down the movie division if they feel that it doesn't deliver anymore.

Or sell it.

On the subject of the fate of Fox Searchlight, I would probably eulogize it right now. Anyone who paid attention to what Disney did to Miramax in 2010 should know that Disney has zero interest in indie and foreign films. Hell, I'm not sure if they even want the Fox Searchlight library if they can't make a franchise out of it. Besides, if the Miramax library was so valuable to Disney, they wouldn't have sold it off. But they did. I wouldn't be surprised if they did the same with Fox Searchlight.

edited 22nd Dec '17 5:07:41 PM by Mario1995

I'm not sure if Disney will be quick to put the kibosh on Fox Searchlight Pictures...

Last I checked, one of the titles they namedropped in the announcement PR was The Grand Budapest Hotel and that was released under Fox Searchlight.

Again, it's still really early to say a lot of things.

edited 22nd Dec '17 5:19:58 PM by TargetmasterJoe

That one's a good one. I half-expect Disney to implement that baked Mendl's Macguffin from TGBH into their theme park menus now.

I really would not know what Disney will do with Wes Anderson back in their corner, as he will be back in if the deal goes through. Anderson has done films for Disney before, most notably The Royal Tenenbaums, which was released under Touchstone.

edited 22nd Dec '17 5:32:06 PM by jameygamer

I have a feeling that Disney will merge all three Fox studios with a revitalized Touchstone, but we’ll see.

Miramax is hardly a good example. There was a lot what went down back then, from Disney not wanting to get pulled into political controversy to its desire to disassociate itself from the Weinstein Company as far as possible.

Searchlight, well, there are two things one has to know about Fox Searchlight:

1. It is NOT a production company. Searchlight is a distribution company. One which helps with financing movies from time to time, but its objective is pretty much to find promising arthouse and foreign productions for its distribution roster.

2. Unlike Miramax, which had a reputation to be "edgy", Searchlight has a reputation to be "artsy". And artsy is exactly what Disney is currently looking for to broaden its appeal.

Honestly, my money is on Disney trying to turn Searchlight into the brand for Oscar contenders. Because if there is something Disney is really, really good at, it is building a brand.

Especially since Searchlight actually has a pretty high investment-to-return ratio. Yeah, you aren't likely to get a billion dollar movie out of it, but you are likely to get a string of movies that make well over their budgets. Internationally, Murder on the Orient Express (I'm using this example, because that's their highest profile release in the past few months) made five times it's budget. Yeah, that's just 300 million...but that's 300 million on a budget of 55 million. It's well more than enough to pay out of pocket for a sequel and still have a lot of money left over.

I think if Fox Searchlight can maintain their average of almost always making a profit to some degree, Disney wouldn't have much of a reason to scuttle them entirely.

edited 22nd Dec '17 7:21:09 PM by Zendervai

I wonder if they’ll rebrand it as “Touchstone Searchlight” & breathe some life back into Touchstone.

I wouldn't put it past them to simply call it "Disney Searchlight", just like it is technical "Disney Pixar" nowadays.

Or just “Searchlight”.

I think they might use Touchstone for everything which doesn't have searchlight quality and won't fit under any other label.

In other words, you think the studio (minus Searchlight & maybe Blue Sky) would be merged with Touchstone?

If I had to guess, Disney will sell Blue Sky. They don't really need it. They will then shuffle the Marvel Franchise over to Marvel studios. Otherwise they will keep Fox studios running as it is, but release their stuff under different brands...."Oscar bait" goes to Searchlight, "Family entertainment/not marvel related blockbusters" to Disney Entertainment (or however the studio which does Pot C is called), everything else goes to Touchstone. Maybe they'll do a separate Horror/r-rated brand down the line, too.

Stuff very heavily associated with Fox might stay under the Fox label though. Like, as mentioned waaaaay up the thread, they might stick Star Wars under the Fox label so they can use the iconic overture again. I mean, they haven't been putting the Disney logo in front of the Star Wars movies so far, so yeah.

And Blue Sky...if I had to guess and they get sold, maybe Paramount might try to get them? They're the only ones out of the big Five/Four (once you remove Fox) that doesn't have a full animation studio directly under their umbrella. (There is Paramount Animation, but it works by outsourcing. Each upcoming Paramount Animation feature is being made by a different actual studio for Paramount Animation.) I'd also throw in a very outside bet for Lionsgate, since they seem to be trying to crawl up into the realm big five studios, at least for a little while now.

edited 23rd Dec '17 9:40:42 AM by Zendervai

Disney won't sell Bluesky,just because they don't need it doesn't mean they don't want to hold on to it until a good buyer comes along