Soon, Disney will own you. And me. And probably everyone and everything.
In a massive, game-changing deal that sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry (and beyond), even if we knew it was coming, the announcement was officially made back in December 2017 that Disney had purchased *most* of 21st Century Fox, shelling out a whopping $71.3 billion for the assets. As of 12:02 a.m. today, the acquisition is now complete.
“The acquisition includes 21st Century Fox’s renowned film production businesses, including Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures, Fox Family and Fox Animation; Fox’s television creative units, Twentieth Century Fox Television, FX Productions and Fox21; FX Networks; National Geographic Partners; Fox Networks Group International; Star India; and Fox’s interests in Hulu, Tata Sky and Endemol Shine Group.”
We don’t yet know how anything is going to shake out in the months and years to come, but we do know one thing for certain: Disney now owns both Alien and Predator!
Will Disney be scrapping Fox’s adult-oriented properties, or does the kid-friendly company plan on allowing them to continue under the Fox umbrella? There’s hope for the latter.
During a Disney earnings call earlier this year, reported by Discussing Film, “[Disney chairman] Bob Iger has said that they plan on keeping Deadpool an R-Rated brand and plan to further include R-Rated film brands in their future product portfolio.”
[Related] Six Official ‘Alien’ Universe Short Films Coming Soon
One thing we can be pretty certain of is that we’ve probably seen the last of Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel franchise at this point, and we’re certainly not expecting a sequel to Shane Black’s The Predator either. If we had to put money on it, we’d bet on both franchises being rebooted by Disney/Fox – potentially within a brand new shared cinematic universe…?
Should be interesting, to say the least.
