Why Disney's $52.4 billion takeover of Fox spells doom for Hollywood
The legendary Frank Capra once said that an actor crying on the screen was not drama; real drama was when the audiences cried. Much like a good story that Hollywood loves, the year 2017 would be remembered as the one where perhaps more drama took place off screen than on it.
Reduced output
In a year where karma finally caught up with the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, Kevin Spacey, Bryan Singer, and many more men for their alleged sexual misconduct, the other off-screen event that made big news was the $52.4 billion accusation of 20th Century Fox by the Walt Disney Company. While the house of the mouse celebrates its hunt of the fox, the development could lead to a great dip in creativity in the years to come.
Assuming that US regulators allow the deal to go through, which is expected to take at least a year, the industry is already abuzz with the possibilities. Most pundits have been saying that Disney essentially went in for Fox with the aim to get into its own streaming business. There has already been an announcement by Disney about its decision to launch its own streaming service to take on Netflix, Apple, and Amazon and on the face of it, this merger more than helps Disney to achieve that goal as the access it brings to software will easily allow it to fill the slots.
This merger also gives Disney nearly a 39 percent stake in Fox’s European satellite company, Sky, and cable networks such as FX (Disney now owns The Americans as well) and National Geographic besides a majority ownership in the streaming Hulu, it would be a cakewalk for Disney to fill its own streaming service. But a small step for the streaming model could just spell doom for cinema.
Disney fundamentally looks at films from the box officer perspective. For it, the only thing that gets attention is the typical summer blockbuster. It focuses on a very specific audience age group such as young adults, families or children but 20thCentury Fox and more specifically its subsidiary Fox Searchlight have an entirely different approach.
With films like The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Fox Searchlight is a major force when it comes to films beyond the blockbuster variety. Although there has not been any indication of change, the fact that to comply with antitrust regulators the joint studio (Disney and Fox) it would have to reduce its overall output, this means that things could go bad for films.
Growing clout
Talking about clout, Disney along with Fox controls almost 40 per cent of the movie business. Now, as a company that is primarily focused on making blockbusters its only a matter of time before, dare I say, the stupidity level of films increases. As a critic of the merger pointed out, Fox with titles such as The Post, one of its several Oscar-friendly films this year, at least tried making films for adults.
In 2012, Disney bought George Lucas’ company, Lucas film, and along with that it also became the owner of the Star Wars franchise. In the last five years, Disney has rejigged the franchise to a degree where all association with the past is perfunctory.
Weird combos
This is clearly visible from the first two films of the sequel trilogy — JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens and Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi — the franchise is ready for the new world order. With the extensive library of 20th Century Fox also at its disposal, Disney now has access to X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool from the Marvel universe as well as Spider-Man and also The Simpsons, the Alien franchise, and Alvin and the Chipmunks besides the Avatar brand. In effect, nothing could stop Disney from coming up with weird super-hero combinations in the future.
As a part of the deal Disney also owns Planet of Apes franchise and who knows if in the future you could see Caesar, the mighty ape, rub shoulders with the Black Panther or The Avengers! Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to a world where the fox has been outsmarted by the mouse.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)