Disney's Next Acquisition Speculation / Discussion

AnotherDayAnotherDollar

Well-Known Member
Next step is to deleverage and getting their streaming division profitable. I wouldn't expect an acquisition any time soon unless something great comes up. That said, I agree that they should look into acquiring game companies.
 

Quinnmac000

Well-Known Member
Gaming Companies are now limited due to new Japanese laws on foreign ownership (essentially Japanese owned for security reasons unless have active large scale capital investments already in Japan which limits it to WB, Sony, and Universal as Sony is Japanese Owned, Warner has an huge capital investment in a lot of anime companies as well as Universal)...which leaves Ubisoft, Activision, and EA as the majors but two of those companies have horrible reps.
 

Indy_UK

Well-Known Member
I really don't think Disney needs to buy up any future studios or IP, they've got enough to corner their part of the market forever
 

Darkprime

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I really don't think Disney needs to buy up any future studios or IP, they've got enough to corner their part of the market forever

While I generally agree with this. I think most people agree Spider-Man is the main one that Disney needs to acquire. The licensing deal with Sony sucks. And does not benefit Disney at all they get nothing out of it. Worst of all is that another studio is using the MCU to promote their character. Unless profit is split more equally with the next deal id let Sony take Spidey back. I think they would quickly realize that fans don't care about Spider-Man outside the MCU. And would be back to where they were after Amazing Spider-Man 2. Their only option at that point would be to sell the IP I doubt Marvel would accept another licensing deal If they take Tom Holland's Spider-Man out of the MCU. Since it would mean Marvel would have to reboot again. While Feige doesn't need the character when they just got two of their biggest franchises back with X-Men & FF. Sony needs Marvel more than Marvel needs Spider-Man.
 
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Disney Irish

Premium Member
While I generally agree with this. I think most people agree Spider-Man is the main one that Disney needs to acquire. The licensing deal with Sony sucks. And does not benefit Disney at all they get nothing out of it. Worst of all is that another studio is using the MCU to promote their character. Unless profit is split more equally with the next deal id let Sony take Spidey back. I think they would quickly realize that fans don't care about Spider-Man outside the MCU. And would be back to where they were after Amazing Spider-Man 2. Their only option at that point would be to sell the IP I doubt Marvel would accept another licensing deal If they take Tom Holland's Spider-Man out of the MCU. Since it would mean Marvel would have to reboot again. While Feige doesn't need the character when they just got two of their biggest franchises back with X-Men & FF. Sony needs Marvel more than Marvel needs Spider-Man.
Venom and Into the Spiderverse box offices would contradict this, both of which are not tied to the MCU. It appears that fans actually do care about Spider-Man (and the Spiderverse as a whole) outside of the MCU. Its just they care about a good film, not just reboot after reboot retelling of the same story. So while I actually liked the Andrew Garfield version, fans were getting tired of hearing the same origin story over again. Which is why the Tom Holland version skipped all that.

In reality both Sony and Disney benefit from the deal. Sony gets the built-in audience that comes with the MCU, and Disney gets access to Spider-Man (and by some accounts the entire Spiderverse, Amy Pascal hinted at this) into the MCU. Also just FYI, while Disney gets no share of the box office from standalone Spider-Man films (plus Sony pays 100% for all production costs including Marvel resources used during production), they get 100% of the other MCU films where Tom Holland stars as Spider-Man no share goes to Sony.

So while I would like to see all Marvel characters film rights back under Marvel, this deal is again a win-win for both sides.

If there is a renegotiation of the deal I would see each side wanting a bit more, Disney would likely want some of the box office of the standalone films in exchange for Disney kicking in money for production.
 

bUU

Well-Known Member
Wow! What does Disney really need at this point?
Disney generally pursues a vertical integration strategy and one thing that their acquisitions in recent years have failed to acquire is anything getting them close to that last mile between them and their customers, something that their biggest competitor CMCSA has. I don't know if there any practical path forward toward filling in that gap, but if there is, I'd expect Disney to pursue it, even if it fails once or twice.
 

bartholomr4

Well-Known Member
Venom and Into the Spiderverse box offices would contradict this, both of which are not tied to the MCU. It appears that fans actually do care about Spider-Man (and the Spiderverse as a whole) outside of the MCU. Its just they care about a good film, not just reboot after reboot retelling of the same story. So while I actually liked the Andrew Garfield version, fans were getting tired of hearing the same origin story over again. Which is why the Tom Holland version skipped all that.

In reality both Sony and Disney benefit from the deal. Sony gets the built-in audience that comes with the MCU, and Disney gets access to Spider-Man (and by some accounts the entire Spiderverse, Amy Pascal hinted at this) into the MCU. Also just FYI, while Disney gets no share of the box office from standalone Spider-Man films (plus Sony pays 100% for all production costs including Marvel resources used during production), they get 100% of the other MCU films where Tom Holland stars as Spider-Man no share goes to Sony.

So while I would like to see all Marvel characters film rights back under Marvel, this deal is again a win-win for both sides.

If there is a renegotiation of the deal I would see each side wanting a bit more, Disney would likely want some of the box office of the standalone films in exchange for Disney kicking in money for production.

Sony as a company is a hardware manufacturer at heart. Based in Japan they run Sony Pictures from California, but they are also focused on a large manufacturing base which produces telecommunications, video game, televisions, computing, etc. most of which is shrinking. A Private Equity Firm called Prime Capital Management recently purchased a large stake in Sony. They are attempting to pressure Sony to improve its performance and to sell off "non-core" assets. The laws in Japan are different than the United States, so they may not be successful. Lastly, Amy Pascal (The brain child for all of this) left Sony in May. Per Variety, Sony Pictures lost over $900 million dollars last year. The pressure is on to consider a change..... A hopeful thought..... Sony - a manufacturing company which owns a Movie / Media company as an asset, might think about selling some or all of the assets.

From a Disney perspective, Marvel already owns Spiderman.... It licenses an exclusive right to the Spiderverse to Sony, which is documented here in these discussions as a two way partnership. Changes to this license agreement will not have the same regulatory review, and can be done quickly. Purchasing the Movie Studio on the other hand, would be a time consuming and require a regulatory review, and quite frankly include the sale of a bunch of assets, which Disney doesn't want. Its a long shot, (a really long shot), but one might hope.... As the current deal with 3 films in the MCU and 3 standalone movies ends, Disney and Sony will have to go back to the table, Lets hope they decide to exchange assets, and/or modify the license agreement further..... Not very likely, but something to consider.
 

Disney Irish

Premium Member
Sony as a company is a hardware manufacturer at heart. Based in Japan they run Sony Pictures from California, but they are also focused on a large manufacturing base which produces telecommunications, video game, televisions, computing, etc. most of which is shrinking. A Private Equity Firm called Prime Capital Management recently purchased a large stake in Sony. They are attempting to pressure Sony to improve its performance and to sell off "non-core" assets. The laws in Japan are different than the United States, so they may not be successful. Lastly, Amy Pascal (The brain child for all of this) left Sony in May. Per Variety, Sony Pictures lost over $900 million dollars last year. The pressure is on to consider a change..... A hopeful thought..... Sony - a manufacturing company which owns a Movie / Media company as an asset, might think about selling some or all of the assets.

From a Disney perspective, Marvel already owns Spiderman.... It licenses an exclusive right to the Spiderverse to Sony, which is documented here in these discussions as a two way partnership. Changes to this license agreement will not have the same regulatory review, and can be done quickly. Purchasing the Movie Studio on the other hand, would be a time consuming and require a regulatory review, and quite frankly include the sale of a bunch of assets, which Disney doesn't want. Its a long shot, (a really long shot), but one might hope.... As the current deal with 3 films in the MCU and 3 standalone movies ends, Disney and Sony will have to go back to the table, Lets hope they decide to exchange assets, and/or modify the license agreement further..... Not very likely, but something to consider.
I’m not sure why you’re giving a history lesson here. A lot of this has been repeated over and over in the trades since Sony bought Columbia back in 1989.

Bottom line Sony has had plenty of opportunities to offload not only Columbia but also it’s film rights to Spider-Man for almost a decade. At this point Sony doesn’t appear to want to sell nor give the film rights completely back to Marvel. That may change if things go south, but for now everything is the status quo for Columbia at Sony. Specifically when It comes to Spider-Man. Because no matter if Amy Pascal is at Sony or not, the deal is still in effect. Her leaving has no effect on that, until a renew is needed.
 

capsshield

Active Member
Disney generally pursues a vertical integration strategy and one thing that their acquisitions in recent years have failed to acquire is anything getting them close to that last mile between them and their customers, something that their biggest competitor CMCSA has. I don't know if there any practical path forward toward filling in that gap, but if there is, I'd expect Disney to pursue it, even if it fails once or twice.
I remember Eisner said buying ABC was in part to help protect their presence on Cable. I do agree with you that I think if they could find the delivery system they would. Off the top of my head I can't think of one that isn't already connected to a competitor. They are at this point a huge draw to any delivery system so they can get around this just by their size alone. How many channels do they operate now?
 

Darkprime

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I remember Eisner said buying ABC was in part to help protect their presence on Cable. I do agree with you that I think if they could find the delivery system they would. Off the top of my head I can't think of one that isn't already connected to a competitor. They are at this point a huge draw to any delivery system so they can get around this just by their size alone. How many channels do they operate now?

This is why they should have looked more into acquiring Netflix imo. The content delivery system was already place. Already has a huge subscriber base. I don't know if the DOJ would have approved a deal to acquire Netflix tho. Fox did make more sense since they had more IP that could merge with the Disney brand. Avatar and Marvel etc. But Netflix would have given them an established content delivery system maybe one big enough to compete with Comcast.
 

bUU

Well-Known Member
I remember Eisner said buying ABC was in part to help protect their presence on Cable. I do agree with you that I think if they could find the delivery system they would. Off the top of my head I can't think of one that isn't already connected to a competitor.
I'm not sure Charter Communications qualifies as being "connected to a competitor". There are a few isolated overlaps, but those could be divested in a wholesale acquisition. The combination of Charter Communications and Disney would be a worthy rival to Comcast.

However, I think the chances of Malone selling to Disney are slim to none.
 

capsshield

Active Member
I'm not sure Charter Communications qualifies as being "connected to a competitor". There are a few isolated overlaps, but those could be divested in a wholesale acquisition. The combination of Charter Communications and Disney would be a worthy rival to Comcast.

However, I think the chances of Malone selling to Disney are slim to none.
They look like a definite possibility but it takes Disney in a direction that feels odd to me.
 

bUU

Well-Known Member
Disney sells license to distribute video content; Charter Communications purchases license to distribute video content. It is textbook vertical integration.
 

brodie999

Active Member
I was wondering whether or not this was thread worthy or if I should have put it on one of the Fox acquisition threads. But I thought it might be a good discussion. So what do you think Disney's next acquisition could be? Following its highly anticipated and somewhat controversial deal to acquire 21st Century Fox's Entertainment assets closing earlier this year. Many are already discussing what Disney's next acquisition might be. All though most of us I think agree the next acquisition probably won't happen till 2021 at the earliest as Disney recovers financially from the Fox deal.

There's some speculation about what the new CEO in 2021 might do to make their big opening statement. I was speaking with an analyst earlier today and they were speculating that the next CEO whoever that might be may try to acquire Sony. The analyst couldn't say whether he believed such a transaction would even be approved but he believed that the driving force behind such an acquisition would be to acquire Sony's Marvel properties. Specifically Spider-Man. And that the deal wouldn't be content driven like the Fox deal.

But when I mentioned Sony's content being part of Disney+ if such a deal happened he said yea it would make sense. But Spider-Man would be the main reason behind such deal which I thought was interesting and this was coming from an analyst who are all "Content is King" now a days. So what do you think? Will Disney try to acquire Sony within the next few years? or could they buy something else? There's also been a lot of talk that Disney should get into video game development. Maybe they look at acquiring a video game studio?

Here's a look at some of Disney's past acquisitions.

A history of Disney acquisition's

January 2006 - Pixar

August 2009 - Marvel Entertainment

October 2012 - Lucasfilm

August 2016 - BAMTech

December 2017 - 21st Century Fox

March 2019 - Hulu

Looking at the above timeline it seems like Disney likes to acquire something every 3-4 years. The Fox deal being the exception as Disney looked to build its library of content for Disney+. Based on this timeline we should expect the next acquisition in 2021/2022. What ever that ends up being i'm sure it will be exciting, controversial and hotly debated as Disney continues to grow.
I agree. If Sony sells their music division, a Disney-Sony deal might pass anti-trust approval in 2021-22 once the backlash for their acquisition of Fox has lessened. Studios don't usually get much hate for making acquisitions after a few years.
 

seascape

Well-Known Member
I agree. If Sony sells their music division, a Disney-Sony deal might pass anti-trust approval in 2021-22 once the backlash for their acquisition of Fox has lessened. Studios don't usually get much hate for making acquisitions after a few years.
It was bad enough for the movie industry that Disney was allowed to buy Fox but other than buying the rights to Spiderman they should not be allowed to buy Sony. Disney should have the right to buy any and all Marvel characters and distribution rights but that is all.
 

seascape

Well-Known Member
Is Viacom still looking to sell Paramount? I think it was back in 2016 they were looking to sell a minority stake.
Viacom and CBS are merging. There was also a rumor that they are interested in Lionsgate. It will be interesting to see what happens with other studios. Sony pictures is worth more broken up, selling the Marvel assets to Disney and the rest to someone else. I also think Disney and Comcast could do that deal together and the only way Comcast would receive government approval to buy another studio.
 

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