9 Implications Of Disney Potentially Buying Fox
New MCU meat, and the end for The Simpsons?
A deal that would shake the entertainment industry to its foundations may be in its early stages as Disney has reportedly held preliminary talks to buy 21st Century Fox.
With LucasFilm and Marvel already under its belt, the potential merger would add more of the biggest films and TV franchises to the House of Mouse's empire, from X-Men to Aliens, and give the company the opposition-smashing potential of the Hulk.
According to CNBC, which broke the news, Disney is hoping to acquire parts of Fox's movie and TV businesses and a portion of its media assets, but its news broadcasting division and sports arm will not be included in any deal that moves forward to avoid falling afoul of antitrust regulations.
Talks are believed to be inactive at present, but the mooted acquisition - which would need government approval due to its sheer scale - is said to have been up for preliminary discussion for several weeks.
Given the red tape the two parties would have to overcome, any agreement is likely to be a long time off, which leaves plenty of time to speculate about what a Disney acquisition of Fox could mean for some of the biggest movie and TV brands around.
9. X-Men In The Marvel Cinematic Universe
Long before the MCU was a thing, the screen rights for Marvel's most iconic superheroes were shared between several studios. Since then, many have gravitated back towards their home turf, Spider-Man being the latest when the comic book giant brokered a loan deal with Sony last year.
The biggest Marvel property outside of the MCU is the X-Men movie franchise, which means legendary characters like Wolverine, Magneto and Professor X are off limits to Disney in their celluloid form, but that could change if the firm reaches a deal with Fox.
There has been talk of X-Men entering the MCU over the years. Adding mutants to the shared universe would broaden its horizons and allow Marvel to adapt some of its biggest comic stories in a more faithful way - the X-Men usually play a key role in its crossover events - but introducing them has always seemed an impossible task.
Fox has never shown willingness to relinquish its grip on Marvel's mutants and has movies lined up beyond 2020, but prising them away after its current film slate has wrapped would be a smoother process if Disney bought out the company's assets.
The MCU has essentially written mutants out of its lore, so dropping them into the current status quo could get messy. If Marvel was to regain the screen rights to the X-Men, perhaps the best course of action would be to incorporate them into a rebooted cinematic universe further down the line.
The kind of planetary alignment that would be needed to make this happen could realistically occur. If the current version of the MCU was to wrap up around the same time as the X-Men movies and their spinoffs, the two franchises could be relaunched together under a common umbrella.