Disney/Fox Talks 3 3

[drotto]

4 hours ago, Bosco685 said:

Yes. We got our fantasy properties back together again. That's the euphoria we all experience with the acquisition.

But then you reflect on the thousands that lost their jobs due to this merger, and the $71.3 Billion USD it took to make this happen. Time will tell how that plays out for the company, and the industry.

Given the pandemic, Disney's subsequent lack of cash reserves, and the questionable long term value of the IP's obtained, this is going to go down as one of the worst business deals in history.

[fantastic_four]

20 minutes ago, drotto said:

Disney's subsequent lack of cash reserves

Yep...I've heard this all made Iger abandon his plan to start lighting his stogies with flaming Bitcoin receipts and go back to just burning $10,000 bills.  

[media_junkie]

3 hours ago, drotto said:

Given the pandemic, Disney's subsequent lack of cash reserves, and the questionable long term value of the IP's obtained, this is going to go down as one of the worst business deals in history.

I don't believe that at all.  Disney+ has hit it's 2024 goal already (3 years early) for subs.

If the upcoming Star Wars projects announced for Disney+ has the same quality as "The Mandalorian", Star Wars will live on for a long while (granted after the last trilogy this was questionable).

If the upcoming Marvel shows are hits like Mando was then I think the long term value of both IPs obtained (Star Wars and Marvel) will be doing just fine.

I don't think Disneyland (California) is open yet, however Disney World (Florida) is open, and from what I am reading it is just about as crowded as it was pre-Covid.  

Disney is in no worse shape (most likely better shape) than most other media giants.  Yes, I think Disney will do just fine and I think Iger will go down as one of the better heads of Disney (or any media company) in the long run.

[drotto]

39 minutes ago, media_junkie said:

I don't believe that at all.  Disney+ has hit it's 2024 goal already (3 years early) for subs.

If the upcoming Star Wars projects announced for Disney+ has the same quality as "The Mandalorian", Star Wars will live on for a long while (granted after the last trilogy this was questionable).

If the upcoming Marvel shows are hits like Mando was then I think the long term value of both IPs obtained (Star Wars and Marvel) will be doing just fine.

I don't think Disneyland (California) is open yet, however Disney World (Florida) is open, and from what I am reading it is just about as crowded as it was pre-Covid.  

Disney is in no worse shape (most likely better shape) than most other media giants.  Yes, I think Disney will do just fine and I think Iger will go down as one of the better heads of Disney (or any media company) in the long run.

Marvel and Star Wars are not the IP's that hurt Disney, it was the 71 billion spent on Fox.  Yes they got the X-Men and FF, and arguably Avatar, but what else in there is worth 71 billion.

 

As for Disney +, they are ahead on subs, but streaming was designed to be a secondary source of income, and projected to take at least 5 years to be profitable.   Even if they are 3 years ahead, it is still not profitable.  Plus, even if it is, there is no way it makes up for the shortfalls of the loss in park revenues and the loss of all movie revenue.   There is a reason they have laid off 32000 people, and borrowed at least 6 billion dollars, they are broke. They are in worse shape because they are all in on entertainment, while many other entertainment companies are owned by companies with much better diversity. Disney World may be busy, but the bulk of the hotels are ether closed or at low capacity, the restaurants are empty.  That is thr bulk of park profits, not ticket sales. ESPN is also a mess financially.

 

The 71 billion spent on Fox may never make its money back, and that money would have gone a long way in the current crisis. There all on on streaming is a short term gain, but also a move of despiration. They have nowhere else to increase money dreams at this time. Disney is not going anywhere and will recover, but it is far weaker than it has been in decades. Fox is a giant stone around Iger's neck.  He was basically chased out earlier in the year.

[Bosco685]

Reminder of franchises Disney is relaunching or continuing to ensure the $71.3B acquisition.

Could An Alita: Battle Angel Sequel Find A Home At A Different Studio?

Disney Seems To Be Looking at Continuing The ALIEN and PLANET OF THE APES Franchises

Disney Resurrects Predator Franchise with 10 Cloverfield Lane Director

Every Fox Franchise Disney Is Planning To Reboot

Why Avatar Sequels Will Be Bigger For Disney Than Star Wars Movies

• Aliens
• Alita (PENDING)
• Avatar
• Cheaper By The Dozen
• Diary Of A Wimpy Kid
• Home Alone
• Night At The Museum
• Planet Of The Apes
• Predator

[Ares]

On 3/7/2019 at 6:52 PM, Callaway29 said:

Posting here because I never heard about Disney's planned R-rated branch. Will also post in ghost rider thread, assuming one exists and I can find it...

Update: Couldn't find ghost rider thread. With that said, Norman freaking Reedus! That would be epic... Yes, I realize these are just rumors...

R Rated might go here (if you dont live in USA)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_(Disney%2B)

Star is an upcoming hub within the Disney+ streaming service for television and film content intended for an adult audience. The hub will be available in a subset of countries where Disney+ is operated. Star will include content from ABC Signature, 20th Television, FX, Freeform, 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures.

Star will launch on February 23, 2021, in Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. It will expand to more markets later that year

Disney officially announced Star and Star+ on December 10, 2020 at its Investor Day Event.[11] During the event, it was announced that Star will launch as a top-level section within the Disney+ interface. Additional parental controls are planned to launch alongside Star's introduction. Although Star will be available at no extra cost to Disney+ subscribers, the introduction of Star will coincide with a price increase

Library content

Star will include Disney-owned content from ABC, Hulu, FX, and Freeform. The service will also include content produced by ABC Signature and 20th Television which aired on U.S. networks not owned by Disney, such as Fox and Showtime, for which Disney retains the international distribution rights. Furthermore, Star will also include motion pictures from 20th Century Studios, Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures.[2] Similarly to Disney+ and unlike Hulu, Star will not have licensed content from third-parties. Therefore, Star will not have content produced for Hulu by other studios such as MGM and Paramount as these companies sell the international broadcasting rights for their respective shows.[10]

Exclusive international distribution

During Investor Day, it was announced that shows from Disney-owned networks such as Hulu and FX would be exclusively distributed in multiple international markets through Star as Star Originals.[15]

[Bosco685]

Quote

Disney is shutting down Blue Sky Studios, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based animation studio best known for the Ice Age franchise.

 

The studio was owned by Fox until 2019 when the Walt Disney Co. acquired 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets in a deal valued at $71.3 billion. At the time, Walt Disney Animation Studios president Andrew Millstein joined Blue Sky as co-president alongside co-president Robert Baird; both will be leaving the company with the shutting of the studio. The studio also had roughly 450 employees.

 

“Given the current economic realities, after much consideration and evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to close filmmaking operations at Blue Sky Studios," said a company spokesperson in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

 

Since the acquisition, the future of Blue Sky had been in question, as Disney already houses Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, arguably the two biggest brands in feature animation.

 

In recent years, Blue Sky has produced animated features such as Ferdinand, The Peanuts Movie and Rio franchise, but Blue Sky's most valuable property is its Ice Age franchise, which has earned more than $6 billion since the original 2002 animated feature debuted, spawning four sequels as well as several animated TV specials and shorts. Disney will maintain the rights to Blue Sky's titles.

 

[Callaway29]

My daughter loves Ferdinand. And not gonna lie, I like it too...

450 people, dang...casualties are to be expected, yet their stock price is to the moon. 

[Bosco685]

Interesting piece of studio history from this acquisition I had never read this before now about Fox 2000 (studio behind Fight Club, Men of Honor, Man on Fire, Walk the Line, The Devil Wears Prada).

Elizabeth Gabler’s Fox 2000 To Shutter As Disney Takes Over

Quote

Disney originally announced that Fox 2000 would continue operating after the acquisition, which gave Disney 11 film units. However, the next day, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Disney would shut down the studio in October 2019 after The Woman in the Window. Deadline Hollywood was surprised as Fox 2000, considering to be ideal for streaming films, was the reason for the 21st Century Fox acquisition.

So what did they do when Disney changed up the acquisition deal?

Elizabeth Gabler Breaks Silence on Sony Move, Disney Exit

Quote

On July 15, 2019, former Fox 2000 Pictures president Elizabeth Gabler and the entire Fox 2000 staff joined Sony Pictures Entertainment and formed 3000 Pictures with the motion picture group. HarperCollins would be funding half of the division's overhead and development. 3000 Pictures would also pursue projects for TV and streaming.

Quote

It was a bolt from the blue when Disney film studio co-chairmen Alan Horn and Alan Bergman summoned Elizabeth Gabler into a conference room on the Fox lot in May and told her that despite previous assurances to the contrary, her highly regarded division, Fox 2000, would be shuttered in the wake of the Disney-Fox merger.

 

So Gabler took three execs from Fox 2000 with her and is in the process of adding two or three more to set up her division, 3000 Pictures, at Sony. Murray says HarperCollins is putting up “very significant” money to cover half of Gabler’s overhead and development. Would the publishing company co-finance movies? “Anything’s possible,” he says. “We’re big spenders, and if we get something that really works, we’d love to follow it all the way through.”

They picked up the entire operation and took their films with them to Sony as 3000 Pictures.

[Bosco685]

Quote

Disney’s absorption of Fox may have been a bad deal, as per a new report. Disney announced that they would acquire 21st Century Fox in late 2017, ultimately finalizing the deal in 2019. The Fox deal cost Disney $71 billion at the time. This rocked the film industry at the time, given that Fox was previously a dominant studio. After absorbing Fox, Disney now had the rights over a plethora of additional blockbusters, including James Cameron’s smash hit Avatar: The Way of Water.

 

Now, a new report reveals that Disney’s absorption of Fox may not have been such a positive step for the media giant after all. According to The Wrap, the original intention of Disney’s purchase of Fox was to elevate Disney’s hold in blockbuster content made for adult audiences, such as the revived Planet of the Apes trilogy. This did not pan out, for viewers ended up electing streaming platforms over theatrical releases soon into 2019 and 2020, especially as the pandemic hit.

 

This was a particular challenge for Fox films that were expected to make big, for in 2019, 21st Century Fox and Fox Searchlight comprised only $1.6 billion of Disney’s overall $12.6 billion profit. To date, Disney is still in $45 billion of debt from their Fox deal. The Wrap also claims that this has led to Disney essentially “burying” Fox. That is, Disney’s Fox deal has resulted in the platform essentially ignoring the majority of Fox content, instead pouring its energy into only those blockbuster Fox picks.

 

When CEO Bob Iger closed the deal back in 2019, he surely did not expect Disney to make its $71 billion investment back immediately. Those returns take time. As The Wrap lays out, however, Disney’s progress toward a profit in the Fox deal has been slow. Films like Avatar: The Way of Water, which has grossed over $2 billion at the box office, help elevate the chances of Fox’s success, but ultimately eat away at the $45 billion in debt slowly, if Disney is to continue to neglect to invest in Fox the same way that they do other absorbing franchises. The Wrap also referenced Free Guy which, despite boasting an impressive over $331 million, did very little to chip away at Disney’s Fox debt.

Of the $71.3 Billion, Disney is estimated to still be $45 Billion off from making its money back? Investors had to assume this would take many years.

[media_junkie]

On 2/3/2023 at 11:24 AM, Bosco685 said:

Of the $71.3 Billion, Disney is estimated to still be $45 Billion off from making its money back? Investors had to assume this would take many years.

Yeah, I mean that doesn't exactly seem like "breaking" news to me.  Honestly I'd be way more stunned/surprised if you had told me that Disney had already made the money back after only 3 years.

Must be a slow media news day.