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The Walt Disney Co. acquisition of a large chunk of 21st Century Fox is expected to reshape the film-making landscape, uniting two of the "big six" Hollywood studios under one umbrella for the first time.
Disney agreed Thursday to buy key film and television assets from Fox in a 52.4 billion US dollars deal set to step up its challenge to Netflix and emerging rivals in the streaming wars.
For Disney, this seismic move has everything to do with bulking up its content to launch a stand-alone streaming service by 2019.
Disney’s library already consists of the most coveted properties – Pixar animations, Marvel and the Star Wars franchise.
But Fox content will help attract a more mature audience.
The Walt Disney Co. logo appears on a screen above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
"It's certainly a historic merger but this is not the first time two studios have come together – 20th Century Fox is itself the result of a merger," filmmaker Jean-Luc de Fanti, who co-produced "Good Time" and "American Made" this year, told AFP.
On the small screen, the deal would offer Disney the chance to double its stake in streaming service Hulu to a controlling 60 percent, allowing it to fold the up-and-coming platform into its own streaming services being launched in 2019.
It could also add content from Fox's FX – which produced hit series "The Americans" - and National Geographic cable channels, and movies such as "The Revenant" and the "Avatar" franchise, to give it a running start in its bid to challenge Netflix.
The 21st Century Fox logo is seen outside the News Corporation headquarters in Manhattan, New York, US, April 29, 2016.
“On a stand-alone basis as a streaming app, you’re going to have every parent sign up for it already,” said Ross Gerber, president and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment, in an interview with CGTN America.
“So now they’re looking at their slate of content and thinking, ‘our content is very skewed to the nice, and the happy, maybe we need a little more like “American Idol” content or other types of content that’s a little edgier, like on FX which had the OJ Simpson special,’ and things like that. So I think it’s a very good synergy between the two.”
There is, however, a big hurdle that Disney and Fox need to overcome and that’s regulatory approval. Because this is a horizontal merger, in which both companies are in the same business, it might face more government scrutiny because there’s a greater chance at creating a monopoly.
Last year, Disney and Fox controlled about 40 percent of the movie tickets sold in the US. So anything can happen between now and final approval, which could take up to a year.
(CGTN)
