Topic: Disney bought Fox: Fox Shareholders Agreed to $71B Disney Buyout!!

[broodwars]

A clip that comes to mind given the merger's completion...

[BlackNMild2k1]

Can't see the clip, but welcome home X-Men and Fantastic 4.
Marvel is almost whole again.

[BeautifulShy]

Can't see the clip, but welcome home X-Men and Fantastic 4.
Marvel is almost whole again.

It is just the clip of Senator Amidala in Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in response to Emperor Palpatane saying his speech accepting leadership over everything. 

[ThePerm]

And it's done.

https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/?ppLink=pp_wdig

[broodwars]

Can't see the clip, but welcome home X-Men and Fantastic 4.
Marvel is almost whole again.

It's Padme's "So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause" line from Star Wars: Episode 3.

[lolmonade]

At this point, i'm more concerned about what share of the moviegoing experience Disney will have a wrangle on than what properties they have ownership of.  I have friends that live in L.A. and work in the industry, there's real concern over what kind of choke hold they're going to have on theaters regarding how long they'll be forced to keep screens to their movies, and what cut they have to fork over to them.  Disney is cutthroat.

[Order.RSS]

Absolutely bizarre. They could give every person ON EARTH 10 Dollars (there are still areas where this can cover several workdays' wages) and still have nearly a Billion left over for their trouble. Yeah sure X-Men can now play in the Marvel pool, and finally Anastasia is a Disney heroine like everyone already thought.

There's no way this will be worth it. A plunge in competition, thousands of jobs will certainly dissapear over time, Disney functionally ascends to oligopoly status in Western cinema, and I bet Murdoch made bank from this too. 80+ Years of film history will slowly be rewritten, its profitable still relevant organs transplanted into the Disney machine, while the rest will either be buried or serve as endless fodder for streaming and syndication.
But hey fanboys may get to ride a rollercoaster themed after Alien while slurping a Juno smoothie, if they ask Disney nicely in several fan campaigns. 

[broodwars]

Absolutely bizarre. They could give every person ON EARTH 10 Dollars (there are still areas where this can cover several workdays' wages) and still have nearly a Billion left over for their trouble. Yeah sure X-Men can now play in the Marvel pool, and finally Anastasia is a Disney heroine like everyone already thought.

There's no way this will be worth it. A plunge in competition, thousands of jobs will certainly dissapear over time, Disney functionally ascends to oligopoly status in Western cinema, and I bet Murdoch made bank from this too. 80+ Years of film history will slowly be rewritten, its profitable still relevant organs transplanted into the Disney machine, while the rest will either be buried or serve as endless fodder for streaming and syndication.
But hey fanboys may get to ride a rollercoaster themed after Alien while slurping a Juno smoothie, if they ask Disney nicely in several fan campaigns. 

You know, it's funny...you know that terrible ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter attraction at Disney World's Magic Kingdom (which later became the even worse Stitch's Great Escape)? That ride evolved from an idea Michael Eisner wanted yo do back in the 80s with the ACTUAL Alien franchise. You'd ride around in cars like Buzz Lightyear and shoot at Xenomorphs with Shotguns.

It never happened because the Imagineers revolted, but they could totally do that ride now.

On a side note, if Disney is SO dedicated to gutting the Twilight Zone branding from the remaining Tower of Terror, I could totally see Alien being an appropriate replacement franchise for that theming.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Don't forget that Fox was selling and Disney was buying.

It's not like Disney forced a sale. or did a takeover.
If it wasn't Disney, it would've been Comcast.

I'm pretty sure we all would've preferred Disney over Comcast.

[UncleBob]

The funny thing is...At no point in history has the human race *ever* had the ability to consume as wide range of entertainment as we do now.  Between the dozens of streaming services, self-publishing sites like Youtube, and old standbys like cable, satellite, etc... and it's all literally at our fingertips.

I remember having a black and white, OTA 6 in portable TV when I was younger.  It weighed about 900 pounds, used 8 D cell batteries (with next to no extended battery life), couldn't stay tuned to a station for more than a minute when traveling, and had no way to hook up an alternate video source.

Now, I drive around at night playing Pokémon Go while a spare tablet streams Netflix or video game history videos off Youtube and plays it through my car speakers (No, I'm not watching while driving).

In addition to having a plethora of sources for content at our fingertips, we have an insane amount of content creators.  You have big budget stuff like Disney, WB, Netflix, etc., all the way down to YouTube **** like PewDiePie (I seriously do not understand the attraction, but obviously, a few million do.).

And one giant company gobbling up another giant company is the end of the world.  And we're talking about entertainment at that.  Oh no, theaters which have been dying for years are now suddenly going to die!  Woe is me, the money I wouldn't have spent pirating FOX movies is now not going to go to Disney when I pirate the movies!

Bah.

And I'm just gonna say it - Star Wars was **** before Disney bought it and Rogue One was an amazing film.

[ShyGuy]

https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/

Look at that diverse array of intellectual property!


...When is Square Enix making Springfield Hearts?

[broodwars]

The funny thing is...At no point in history has the human race *ever* had the ability to consume as wide range of entertainment as we do now.  Between the dozens of streaming services, self-publishing sites like Youtube, and old standbys like cable, satellite, etc... and it's all literally at our fingertips.

I remember having a black and white, OTA 6 in portable TV when I was younger.  It weighed about 900 pounds, used 8 D cell batteries (with next to no extended battery life), couldn't stay tuned to a station for more than a minute when traveling, and had no way to hook up an alternate video source.

Now, I drive around at night playing Pokémon Go while a spare tablet streams Netflix or video game history videos off Youtube and plays it through my car speakers (No, I'm not watching while driving).

In addition to having a plethora of sources for content at our fingertips, we have an insane amount of content creators.  You have big budget stuff like Disney, WB, Netflix, etc., all the way down to YouTube **** like PewDiePie (I seriously do not understand the attraction, but obviously, a few million do.).

And one giant company gobbling up another giant company is the end of the world.  And we're talking about entertainment at that.  Oh no, theaters which have been dying for years are now suddenly going to die!  Woe is me, the money I wouldn't have spent pirating FOX movies is now not going to go to Disney when I pirate the movies!

Bah.

And I'm just gonna say it - Star Wars was **** before Disney bought it and Rogue One was an amazing film.

Yes, let's not be concerned over the company that's singlehandedly gotten copyright law rewritten getting even more money and power. I mean, how could more money & influence going to one of the biggest lobbying entities in the world possibly come back to haunt us?

As for the "well, someone was going to buy them anyway" argument, I believe Kirk has this one:

Let them die. Let them crumble into dirt and let the vultures pick at their bones. Let the component pieces go at auction, which would be the best way to diversify ownership. Better that than one company, Disney OR Comcast, getting everything. Remember when companies were still allowed to fail?

[lolmonade]

I'm not going to get into solutions to this problem (if you perceive it as a problem like me), because in my view it's wholly around what political institutions could do if they had the will to.  But what it comes down to is there's no will from these institutions to make changes that'd be perceived as "anti-business", and any online campaigns and pseudo activism around it boils down to impotent rage in the face of this reality.

And I know too many people that couldn't care less about societal implications of these mergers/acquisitions as long as their favorite fictional characters can be together.  And if some here feel that way, that's fine, i'm not naive to think i'll change minds here.  But the structural challenges of undoing what's happening is too great IMO.

[nickmitch]

"Allowed to fail" makes it sound like Fox was forced to sell.  Also, the amount of work you have to do sell off bits and pieces of a company (if it's not already in bankruptcy) is gonna be a lot more than just selling the whole thing (aside from the bits Disney didn't actually get).

Also, Disney will probably become bigger jerks to the theatres, but they still need the theatres to live, at least until they try to buy AMC and/or Regal.

[UncleBob]

Yes, let's not be concerned over the company that's singlehandedly gotten copyright law rewritten getting even more money and power. I mean, how could more money & influence going to one of the biggest lobbying entities in the world possibly come back to haunt us?

That, my friend, is an issue with politics, not with business.

I don't blame the wolves that eat the sheep.  I blame the farmer for not keeping his fence in repair.

[broodwars]

Disney is now expected to lay off/fire thousands of Fox employees now that the acquisition's complete.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/disney-expected-to-lay-off-thousands-of-people-aft/1100-6465740/?utm_source=gamefaqs&utm_medium=partner&utm_content=news_module&utm_campaign=homepage

"but...BUT...THE X-MEN CAN TEAM UP WITH THE AVENGERS & THE FANTASTIC 4 NOW!"

 

[BlackNMild2k1]

Fox was selling... if Comcast had bought them, then the EXACT same thing would happen due to redundancies in the workforce.

Disney did not do a hostile take over. if Disney didn't swing for the fences on this, we would have gotten the much worst option of Comcast buying Fox. Then not only wouldn't my X-Men team up with my Avengers and Fantastic 4, but my internet/cable prices would probably skyrocket.

The silver lining to this situation that none of us have control over, is that atleast now my Avengers get to play with Deadpool and the X-Men, and the Fantastic 4 can finally come home again.

Yes is sucks that Disney was the biggest fish that got to swallow an already really big fish, and everyone would've preferred if all the littler fish were allowed to nibble the good parts off this big fish before it decided to sacrifice itself to the largest fish willing to swallow it whole.
Yes it sucks that thousands of people are going to lose their jobs because they don't need 4-5 people all doing the exact same things at the same time (they will all be given very generous severance packages).
But these are 2 things that were going to happen regardless of if it was Disney or Comcast that bought it.

Some of us are just not gonna get all hung up on the decisions made way above our pay grade and levels of influence. So we choose to be excited about the good that comes out of it, and be thankful that out of the 2 options we were stuck with, at least this time, we got the least bad option.
Honestly, if you gonna throw shade, don't throw it at Disney breaking bank. Throw it at Fox for selling the farm.

Disney+ gonna be a must subscribe tho....


Now bring me Doom!!!
and who wants to bet that there is a new end credit scene being worked on for Endgame and Spider-Man right now.

[UncleBob]

Disney is now expected to lay off/fire thousands of Fox employees now that the acquisition's complete

Hey, I know a better plan!

Let them die. Let them crumble into dirt and let the vultures pick at their bones.

Oh... wait...

[broodwars]

Disney is now expected to lay off/fire thousands of Fox employees now that the acquisition's complete

Hey, I know a better plan!

Let them die. Let them crumble into dirt and let the vultures pick at their bones.

Oh... wait...

One is an unfortunate and unavoidable consequence of failure, such as the closure of Telltale Games last year.

The other is a corporation buying a company so they can strip it of its assets and throw the employees away. This is like Bobby Kotick reporting record profits for Activision followed by laying off 8,000 employees. They're a giant company. They probably could have found SOMETHING for those redundant employees to do. They could have been part of a spin-off studio like Touchtone, making films/etc. that Disney themselves might not have made.

More employees probably would have lasted at Fox if the company had been forcibly left alone due to government intervention in preventing buy-outs from Disney & Comcast, and they probably would have lasted longer.

[UncleBob]

forcibly left alone due to government intervention

Uhhh... those words don't make sense in that sentance.

Finding unnecessary people something "redundant to do" isn't how a business makes money.  How many people do you have mow your yard each day?

There's a reason FOX wanted to sell, and it wasn't because they saw big bucks in their future of keeping business as usual.

[ShyGuy]

I think Rupert Murdoch being 88 years old played a factor.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I edited my post above for cleaning up punctuation mostly, but I just wanted to also point out that everyone getting laid off will more than likely be getting very generous severance packages.

They will be just fine for months on end, also double dipping in unemployment while they hunt down the perfect next career move.

[ThePerm]

Also, probably a great time to move on to Warner Bros, Sony, Lions Gate etc.

[lolmonade]

I think Rupert Murdoch being 88 years old played a factor.

Agreed.  I think the Murdoch family wanting to divest a portion of their business they no longer have interest in maintaining is a more likely culprit than anything. 

I'm not sure where Broodwars got the impression that this was a rewarding of failure.  20th Century Fox seemingly was doing just fine financially, even if you question the quality of work that was coming out of them.  Divesting their business to a bidder isn't rewarding failure, it's a sale of properties and assets. 

If the heartburn is about the monopolization of entertainment industry by Disney, then the only institutions that could enforce regulations meant to stifle anti-competitive practices is the government, which our current iteration has no interest in doing other than in service of personal grudges.

Disney+ gonna be a must subscribe tho....

As a family with two children, as much as I don't want to subscribe to another service, if it's $10 or less for the disney subscription and contains most of the catalogue, it'll be hard not to.  They've got a TON of kids television content my kids would love, too.

[oohhboy]

A big problem with all these firings/mergers is that there will be a lot of collateral damage as Disney has no idea where the talent lies, what made it tick. Best case would have been leaving them be as a wholly own subsidiary while transferring the Marvel related material.

Buying Fox is overkill if it was just a IP thing but obviously it was a package deal and a loy of jostling just to prevent others from buying it. Beyond the drop in competition fundamentally I don't like this as Disney is increasingly happy to settle for mediocrity, doing just enough to get something across the line to the masses without any stimulation, fully homogenised. Endless throw away movies.

They aren't going to fund new experimental stuff that would gander cult followings, stand the test of time to become classics. They are going to raid the vault until heat death.

While UncleBob has a point in regards to 'Unlimited' entertainment, it's not really as people including myself are going to get attached to certain IP, people hoping the new corporate environment isn't going to ruin it like so many shows with reboots, remakes, pointless sequels etc destroying our collective cultural heritage.

We will still get some good stuff from Fox for now but a lot of it will be from inertia.

Rogue One was a good 1/3 of a movie, it's a really good 1/3 but damn what a mess leading up to it. I wouldn't be surprised if 2/3 was re-shot as it doesn't feel SW or matches the last 1/3. The difference in quality is startling.