Disney/Fox Talks 3 3

[ComicConnoisseur]

The Elephants in the room could be James Cameron`s Avatar and Matt Groening`s  the Simpsons.

     

Add X-Men and all the other ips they got in the Fox deal and we will find they will be fine in the end.

[Bosco685]

 

[drotto]

17 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

The Elephants in the room could be James Cameron`s Avatar and Matt Groening`s  the Simpsons.

     

Add X-Men and all the other ips they got in the Fox deal and we will find they will be fine in the end.

I am sure the Marvel properties, Simpsons and Avatar make up a large portion of the price tag.  I think based on inflation and past purchases. Marvel stuff is worth 8 billion, Avatar another 8 billion, and Simpsons around 12 billion if they were purchased alone.

 

Throw in all the other TV shows past and present, movies, and other media and there is the potential for a lot of revenue.   Also do not discount the price for their share of Hulu, and now having all the back library you could ever need to get a streaming service off the ground. Content on streaming is king in the new media world. 

 

Still think they overpaid for the short term, and future profit can only be realized if the IP's stay strong, and Disney does well in the upcoming streaming wars. But people laughed when they spent 4 billion on Marvel, so what the hell do we know.

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

You have to read in-between the lines with this article on The New Mutants. The biggest concern from Disney is MASS-ATTRACTION versus general film quality.

Quote

Twentieth Century Fox received its first-quarter grades from the Walt Disney Co. last week, and in a public rebuke, the studio’s new corporate parent made it plain that it viewed the first few months as an ominous sign of trouble ahead.

 

In a sharp reprimand that left staffers at Fox reeling and worried about their already fragile job security, Disney chief executive Bob Iger declared on the company’s Aug. 6 quarterly earnings call that “the Fox studio performance … was well below where it had been and well below where we hoped it would be when we made the acquisition.” Iger’s tone was measured, but his message was clear: Shape up.

 

“I’ve never seen a public hanging like that,” remarks one prominent Hollywood producer.

 

Iger was giving voice to simmering frustrations on the part of many Disney insiders. Several people close to the matter say Walt Disney Studios chief creative officer and co-chairman Alan Horn and co-chairman Alan Bergman have been troubled by the poor box office returns and the viability of numerous projects in various stages of development.

 

Of the first few Fox films that Disney was tasked with distributing this year, only one, “Breakthrough,” released in April, was profitable. The faith-based movie grossed $50 million worldwide on a $14 million budget and was produced by DeVon Franklin — whose overall production deal at Fox dissolved in the merger.

 

The other Fox movies that Disney released — “X-Men: Dark Phoenix,” the action comedy “Stuber” and “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” which opened this past weekend to just $8.1 million — were flops. Those offerings had the added misfortune of arriving just as Disney was shattering records with blockbusters such as “Avengers: Endgame,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.”

 

Disney is optimistic that handing Fox superhero properties such as “Fantastic Four” and “X-Men” to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige will improve the quality of these movies, but bumps must be smoothed over in that transition. The studio is unimpressed with “New Mutants,” an “X-Men” spin-off with a haunted-house vibe, and believes it has limited box office potential.

 

The studio is also grappling with how to fit the very R-rated Deadpool into its PG-13-rated Marvel Cinematic Universe. The goal is to find a way for the character to move seamlessly between “Avengers” spinoffs and bloody, profane stand-alone adventures.

 

[fantastic_four]

Does Constantin Films still own the film rights to Fantastic Four, or were they paid off for them as a part of the Fox deal?

[Bosco685]

1 hour ago, fantastic_four said:

Does Constantin Films still own the film rights to Fantastic Four, or were they paid off for them as a part of the Fox deal?

Good question. I bet Disney had to clean up any additional deals with certain rights even on top of Fox if this was still the case.

[Bosco685]

 

Disney Is Quietly Placing Classic Fox Movies Into Its Vault, and That’s Worrying

Quote

Joe Neff knew there was trouble when the horror films started vanishing.

 

Neff is the director of the 24-Hour Science Fiction and Horror Marathons that happen every spring and fall at the Drexel Theater, an independent venue in Columbus, Ohio. For this year’s Horror Marathon, Neff wanted to screen the original 1976 version of The Omen and the 1986 remake of The Fly, two of hundreds of older 20th Century Fox features that became the property of the Walt Disney Corporation after its $71.3 billion purchase of the studio’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, was made official this past spring. In the preceding few months, Neff had heard rumblings in his Google group of film programmers that Disney was about to start treating older Fox titles as they do older Disney titles — making them mostly unavailable to for-profit theaters. More and more film programmers and theater managers were reporting that they had suddenly and cryptically been told by their studio contacts that Fox’s back catalog was no longer available to show. Some got calls informing them that an existing booking had been revoked.

 

When Neff’s requests to screen The Fly and The Omen were denied — via the Drexel, which handles the logistics of booking a programmer’s requested titles — he realized the rumors were true, and that he had to stop screening Fox films altogether. It was a devastating blow: Neff’s homegrown repertory festivals have shown many older Fox movies, including Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Zardoz, the original versions of The Day the Earth Stood Still and Suspiria, and Phantom of the Paradise. He asked the theater to double-check with Disney to make sure there hadn’t been some mistake. “Our Fox booking contact offered a very brief apology that she could no longer book repertory titles with the theater,” he says.

 

Sadly, Neff’s experience is indicative of a recent trend across North America, where it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly what Disney’s new policy regarding back-catalog films is, beyond generally making it more difficult to show classic 20th Century Fox movies in theaters. The Transit Drive-In in Lockport, New York, which has hosted packed screenings of older Fox films like Alien, Aliens, Say Anything, The Princess Bride, and Moulin Rouge, says those films and others can no longer be screened there. The Little Theater in Rochester booked Fox’s Fight Club for August and was told by a Disney spokesperson mere days before the scheduled screening that a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) of the movie would no longer be shipped; then a Disney representative called the theater to apologize for the misunderstanding, and assured management that the film was still on its way; the reversal happened a day after a Los Angeles Times reporter called Disney asking them to clarify their repertory policies.

 

A recent Canadian Broadcasting Company story confirmed that even major first-run chains like Cineplex will now lose access to Fox repertory titles. That collection of movies is a gold mine for many commercial theaters — particularly art houses, regional chains, and big-city multiplexes that like to mix things up by sprinkling a few older works into their screening lineups. In addition to films that have already been mentioned, Fox’s holdings include hundreds of notable films in a variety of genres and modes, a layer cake of options which, taken together, give a sense of the richness of American cinema over the last 100 years: everything from Miracle on 34th Street, All About Eve and The Sound of Music to Deadpool, The Revenant, The Simpsons Movie, and Terrence Malick’s version of The Thin Red Line.

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by Bosco685

[Gatsby77]

56 minutes ago, Bosco685 said:

 

Disney Is Quietly Placing Classic Fox Movies Into Its Vault, and That’s Worrying

 

Wow - horrible news if true.

I've seen Alien twice on the big screen in the last 20 years and The Princess Bride twice in the last three, as it's a staple among the outdoor summer movie screenings throughout DC. 

[WolverineX]

2 hours ago, Gatsby77 said:

Wow - horrible news if true.

I've seen Alien twice on the big screen in the last 20 years and The Princess Bride twice in the last three, as it's a staple among the outdoor summer movie screenings throughout DC. 

Disney sucks. So does kylo Ren

[Bosco685]

Quote

A month ago when Fox Searchlight emails had dropped the Fox, there was a sense that the full integration of the former Rupert Murdoch-owned studio was in full effect at Disney. Well, it’s official today: in the wake of the 20th Century Fox film division updating their emails last night to @20thCenturyStudios, both labels are dropping Fox from their logos. Going forward, you’ll see the Searchlight Pictures logo on their specialty fare, and 20th Century Studios on the big, wide release titles.

 

Now, from what I understand, legally Disney can still use Fox if they want to in logos, however, the reason for dropping the big name is to avoid confusion with the consumer, especially as the Murdochs keep the Fox name in regards to their big broadcast network and cable and business news cable networks. The update of the Searchlight and 20th Century logos follows in the wake of Disney and Fox’s TV operations being renamed last October with everything except ESPN falling under Walt Disney Television, led by Peter Rice.

 

[Bosco685]

Post-merger, Iger's pay package takes a slight hit.

Quote

Despite overseeing one of the largest mergers Hollywood has ever seen last year, Disney chief Bob Iger ended up taking a pretty hefty hit to his salary. The Walt Disney Company revealed in an SEC filing Friday that Iger earned $47.5 million for the company's 2019 fiscal year, something which ended last September. Compared to his $65.8 million salary in 2018 — which included a stock package incentivizing him to stay past his planned retirement date — Iger ended up seeing a 27.8 percent drop in salary.

 

In the filing, Disney mentioned it had to revise Iger's salary on three separate occasions after speaking with the company's largest shareholders. "Through that feedback, we learned of the concerns about certain aspects of Mr. Iger's employment agreement, including concerns from some shareholders regarding the amount of Mr. Iger's total compensation and the rigor of the performance criteria for Mr. Iger's one-time performance-based equity award," Disney's board wrote.

Hopefully he survives this. 

[@therealsilvermane]

21 minutes ago, Bosco685 said:

Post-merger, Iger's pay package takes a slight hit.

Hopefully he survives this. 

Poor guy. Maybe we should all start a GoFundMe page to help him make ends meet, pay bills, etc.

[fantastic_four]

[fantastic_four]

That pic is from Time's article on him where they named him Businessperson of the Year for 2019.  Seems like a good pick given the absolutely monumental successes of the year in the Fox acquisition, Endgame as the biggest film of all time, and the launching of Disney Plus and the runaway success of the Mandalorian.  An interesting bit in the story is where Iger says he knew Baby Yoda would be huge long before the show launched and he considered cashing in with toys, but he decided not to because toy pictures ALWAYS get leaked, and given the 6-month lead time needed to design molds for and mass-produce toys he knew given the launch of the series in November that it would spoil the impact of his appearance at the end of the first episode.  So he decided to wait on the toys and just let it happen.

https://time.com/businessperson-of-the-year-2019-bob-iger/

Edited January 20, 2020 by fantastic_four

[Bosco685]

3 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

That pic is from Time's article on him where they named him Businessperson of the Year for 2019.  Seems like a good pick given the absolutely monumental successes of the year in the Fox acquisition, Endgame as the biggest film of all time, and the launching of Disney Plus and the runaway success of the Mandalorian.  An interesting bit in the story is where Iger says he knew Baby Yoda would be huge long before the show launched and he considered cashing in with toys, but he decided not to because toy pictures ALWAYS get leaked, and given the 6-month lead time needed to design molds for and mass-produce toys he knew given the launch of the series in November that it would spoil the impact of his appearance at the end of the first episode.  So he decided to wait on the toys and just let it happen.

https://time.com/businessperson-of-the-year-2019-bob-iger/

Iger has worked his magic in many ways to pull together a super-successful production empire. There is no question about that.

But to already proclaim the Fox expense of $71.3 billion is already a huge win is years off from becoming a reality. Like about $72 billion off to justify such a massive expense. Which over time Disney will probably achieve when we reflect on the successes of Pixar, Marvel and financially the Star Wars brand (not the quality).

Edited January 20, 2020 by Bosco685

[dai996]

I have to say that out of all of the mergers done under Iger, this was the best one since we get all the remaining Marvel characters.

[media_junkie]

1 hour ago, dai996 said:

I have to say that out of all of the mergers done under Iger, this was the best one since we get all the remaining Marvel characters.

Iger was "Lightning in a bottle" for Disney.  

[Key Largo Comics]

Star Wars and Marvel. Hard to argue with that.

[Bosco685]

7 hours ago, Key Largo Comics said:

Star Wars and Marvel. Hard to argue with that.

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.