News Disney and Fox come to terms -- announcement soon; huge IP acquisition

the.dreamfinder

the.dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
BrianLo said:
Yes exactly! If they are going to go through the efforts to bring them into the story trust fold - Disney just won't let them operate truly independently from Pixar/WDAS, it's not their M.O. - why even bother keeping them in Connecticut.
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seascape said:
Therefore production will probably move to Atlanta. Less jobs in California but more in Georgia. Lower costs and more profits.
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That assumes the current film and animation production subsidies continue, which there is no guarantee of given their expense.

Despite the flight of productions to states that offer subsidies, LA’s are pretty much fully booked and still need more sound stages.

Most of the job loses will come from shuttering Fox film’s marketing/distribution departments and cutting their production slate.
 
JoeCamel

JoeCamel

Well-Known Member
seascape said:
Listening to the confrence calls, I think a lot of the savings will come from refinancing Fox debt which is paying in the high 5's in interest while Disney is paying between 2 and 3 percent and Sky is in the 3's. As for the number of jobs, I think it will be some high paid management positions because there is no need for duplicate managers but in the positions that actually do the work, animators, writers, etc... can't be reduced on a per movie basis. Additionally it sounds like there will be more production for online services not less. The savings will come from the combined theatrical movie distribution and production costs since Disney will not be buying Fox Studios property and sound stages. Therefore production will probably move to Atlanata. Less jobs in Califfornia but more in Georgia. Lower costs and more profits.
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The rating agencies are making noise about lowering TWDC's rating so they may have to pay more if they want to refinance the debt.
 
Nubs70

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
seascape said:
Listening to the confrence calls, I think a lot of the savings will come from refinancing Fox debt which is paying in the high 5's in interest while Disney is paying between 2 and 3 percent and Sky is in the 3's. As for the number of jobs, I think it will be some high paid management positions because there is no need for duplicate managers but in the positions that actually do the work, animators, writers, etc... can't be reduced on a per movie basis. Additionally it sounds like there will be more production for online services not less. The savings will come from the combined theatrical movie distribution and production costs since Disney will not be buying Fox Studios property and sound stages. Therefore production will probably move to Atlanata. Less jobs in Califfornia but more in Georgia. Lower costs and more profits.
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Based on previous rumblings of job cuts, it appears $DIS may well have conducted a business process optimization study and have a transformation planned in the event of this acquisition. This would result in labor cuts both at FOX and $DIS. No one at either company can expect to be safe.
 
Progress.City

Progress.City

Well-Known Member
I just realized a negative potential point with the deal. History Channel used to be a source of credible info, before Disney started introducing Ancient Aliens and the like into its programming. Net Gep has been a good alternative. I guess no longer.
 
Rosso11

Rosso11

Well-Known Member
There's still a lot of value in Blue Sky. They have the ability to make successful animated movies under a 100 million dollar budget. Disney hasn't been able to do that in over a decade. Blue Sky overall is a very profitable studio. Sure they had some misses but what studio hasn't? But they had some huge hits as well. Adding one more animated movie, that's low budget to Disney's standards, each year will not dilute the Disney name. Especially when the Disney name will probably not be attached to it in the first place. Pixar was a different situation even before Disney owned them since Disney was always their distributor. The 2 were tied to each other from the beginning. Blue Sky can easily operate on its own as long as it keeps making money for the mouse.
 
the.dreamfinder

the.dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
Rosso11 said:
There's still a lot of value in Blue Sky. They have the ability to make successful animated movies under a 100 million dollar budget. Disney hasn't been able to do that in over a decade. Blue Sky overall is a very profitable studio. Sure they had some misses but what studio hasn't? But they had some huge hits as well. Adding one more animated movie, that's low budget to Disney's standards, each year will not dilute the Disney name. Especially when the Disney name will probably not be attached to it in the first place. Pixar was a different situation even before Disney owned them since Disney was always their distributor. The 2 were tied to each other from the beginning. Blue Sky can easily operate on its own as long as it keeps making money for the mouse.
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DisneyToon features typically are in the $50 million range. One HUGE thing about the budgets of BlueSky, and Illumination, films are that you aren’t seeing the real budget. Those figures are post government subsidies.

A big problem with this deal is that Disney can do most of the content things it will get from Fox by itself. Ed Catmull has been talking about doing smaller budget, riskier films with smaller teams at Pixar for years. The closest they ever got was “The Shadow King”, which would have been around $100 million, and they cancelled that. It would be a more efficient use of capital to expand WDAS and Pixar’s production capabilities than to buy another studio.

(“Feed the beast” is a real concern I have with this deal for the filmmakers at a combined Disney/Fox, btw.)
 
rael ramone

rael ramone

Well-Known Member
This isn't my comprehensive thoughts, but here's a few:

As far as the big screen goes I don't believe this is about getting more stuff out there - they don't need Fox to do that. I believe they want to reduce the competition for what they do put out.

The (very) small screen - Die Hard the Series anyone?...

The Harassment Issue - Fox employees that are guilty I believe will be a non-issue to $DIS. It's going to take a while for the changeover to go through (if it happens)... What IS interesting is if Seth MacFarlane has a reaction to this transaction and the individuals.... And what's bigger to the Murdoch's - value of $DIS shares or power over $DIS - may determine how this stuff is reported at Fox News & WSJ...
 
LAKid53

LAKid53

Official Member of the Girly Girl Fan Club
Premium Member
twebber55 said:
to me this is all about Hulu and streaming and very little to with acquisition of IPs
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Which Bob Iger stated repeatedly during his interview on CNBC last Thursday. Disney doesn't need Fox Studios to expand its presence in the film industry (already #1) - it does, though, need a larger library if it wants to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime. As they will disappear off Netflix next year, I expect Disney content to eventually be pulled from Amazon also. Disney also expanded its reach globally with Sky and Star. It's estimated Star teaches about 650 million viewers a month in India. Staggering.

This isn't about getting X-Men or Fantastic Four or the Simpsons. This is about Disney becoming THE "cable" streaming giant. Which is probably why Comcast was sniffing around Fox too.
 
the.dreamfinder

the.dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
Three pieces from today:
  1. Buried in a Reuters article, Disney will not try to acquire the outstanding 61% in BSkyB Fox does not own if U.K. regulators vote down the current acquisition proposal. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...following-disneys-deal-with-fox-idUSKBN1EC1QY
  2. New Yorker report reveals it was James Murdoch who pushed for the deal internally and favored son Lachlan has been torn on it. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news...-murdochs-sale-of-fox-entertainment-to-disney
  3. Josh Spiegel of Mousterpiece Cinema on why the Fox deal is bad for Disney fans. http://www.slashfilm.com/disney-fox-deal-concerns/
 
Captain Neo

Captain Neo

Well-Known Member
HauntedMansionFLA said:
Excellent points - I might add that it has nothing to do with theme parks.
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Theme parks are an additive benefit of the deal. It gives Imagineering more content and IPs that they could potentially leverage and justifies the Avatar Land which prior to this deal many people were calling Iger an idiot for approving. Now he looks like a forward thinking genius. They now get a bigger cut of the merchandising and are more justified in expanding the existing Pandora and building new ones at other parks worldwide as they are also now the distributor of the films as well.
 

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