The Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to get a lot bigger. After months of negotiations, shareholders for Disney and Fox voted today to approve the $71.3B deal bringing 21st Century Fox assets under the control of the Walt Disney Company. Yes, that’s a roundabout way of saying the X-Men, Fantastic Four and other related Marvel characters are on the way home.
Fox will continue on, but their focus will shift to other properties, such as Fox Sports, Fox “News”, and more. Let’s be honest, none of us care about that. We care about the film properties that will begin to move under the Disney umbrella. While the X-Men and Fantastic Four are what most people will be talking about, Fox is a storied studio with tons of big-money franchises. Disney not only gains the theatrical and home release rights to the original Star Wars movies, but major tentpoles like Planet of the Apes, The Predator, and more. James Cameron’s Avatar? That’s coming over, too. This simply can’t be overlooked. Disney is about to blow up in a big way, ya’ll. And you can bet most of this will be used to pump up their online streaming network in 2019.
This isn’t quite over yet, but the path is certainly clear. The government has already approved the merger, so that’s one thing that doesn’t need to be worried about. A few regulatory hurdles remain, but these shouldn’t be a huge issue. Certainly, we won’t have to go through weeks of hair-pulling like when Comcast threatened to steal Fox away at the last minute.
We’re closer than ever to an Avengers vs. X-Men movie! It’ll be a few years, maybe even longer than that, but it wasn’t long ago the very idea was inconceivable. I’ve always said the X-Men would never return to Marvel Studios because Fox would be dumb to let a cash cow like that go. Well, I still think they’re pretty dumb, but if it unites the House of Marvel once and for all that’s okay with me.
Expect more analysis of this in the very near future. The deal shouldn’t be signed, sealed, and delivered until early next year so there’s plenty of time. Tell me, what do you want to see out of this historic deal? [Deadline]
