The Walt Disney Company has announced that it has reached a deal to acquire 21st Century Fox, the entertainment side of FOX, in what can only be called a massive, supernova level of a deal.
The deal is worth a reported $52.4 Billion — that’s with a B — and includes such properties as the X-Men and Deadpool, Avatar, the FX and FXX networks, and the Simpsons. All of that is now under Disney’s umbrella. From a business perspective, it’s a dangerous precedent for one company to control EVERYTHING. In reality, the market has continued to shift, with Netflix and Amazon, Viacom and Warner Bros all still being major IP players. If anything, the focus has been on the geek/pop culture side of things, which as we know can fluctuate at times. Arguably the two biggest properties on the planet — Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead — aren’t owned by Disney anyways, and GoT is only loosely tied to Time Warner through HBO.
The real excitement arrives in the comic side of things, as the X-Men media properties finally return home to Marvel. This means that the mutants will more than likely make their way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, just in time for the Avengers to gracefully bow out from their 10+ year run, bringing with them Deadpool (which looks to stay just as dark as it is with Ryan Reynolds in costume) and the Fantastic Four, which need a much needed reboot to figure themselves out.
Now, what that means for gaming is still uncertain. Disney has gone away from self-publishing to licensing out their IPs to developers, with mobile phones as their focus. Let’s just hope that a micro-transaction based X-Men game isn’t going to be something EA is a part of.
I’m anxiously awaiting those Infinity War post-credit scenes now. RIP Inhumans.
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