A year has passed since the deal between Disney and 21st Century Fox was announced. Disney announced today that the deal is “expected to become effective at 12:02 a.m. Eastern Time on March 20, 2019,” suggesting that Disney received all the approval needed.
Disney initially agreed to acquire Fox for $52.4 billion, but a counter-offer from Comcast forced Disney to increase its bid to $71.3 billion.
The acquisition will see Disney buying Fox’s film and television studios, giving it control of the “Avatar” franchise and the film rights to a number of Marvel characters including the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and Deadpool. Along with acquiring huge franchises, the deal will allow Disney to double its stake in Hulu, from 30 to 60 percent.
The merging of these two entertainment juggernauts will come with over 4,000 layoffs and a fair amount of corporate restructuring.
Disney does not want all that Fox has to offer. Fox News, the Fox broadcast network and other assets that Disney is not buying is being branded as a new entity called simply theFox Corporation.
[…] Netflix and Disney will not be part of the platform, though they did considering acquiring both streaming platforms in the past. […]