After weeks of rumors that a deal was coming, it finally became official. Disney now owns 21st Century Fox.
This is the biggest Disney acquisition to date at $66.1 billion. They are specifically buying Fox’s film and TV studio, the National Geographic and FX cable channels business, regional sports networks, international networks, including Star India, Fox’s 30 percent stake in Hulu and its 39 percent stake in European pay TV giant Sky.
What does this mean for Marvel Studios and the cinematic universe? Disney now owns the rights to X-Men, Fantastic Four, and all the characters associated with the two franchises.
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Not only do they now get to utilize mutants and the “first family,” but also characters such as Galactus, Doctor Doom, and Silver Surfer. Some have speculated that this impending deal is the reason Marvel hasn’t shared many details about their “Phase 4” slate of films. We should expect major announcements coming soon.
We may finally get a Fantastic Four movie worth a damn, which means a worthy adaptation of Doctor Doom. Possibilities are endless. With how calculated the MCU has been so far, I imagine they already have a plan in place for a majority of the properties.
When it comes to X-Men, there’s some cause for concern. The X-Films have taken a more mature turn recently, with Logan and Deadpool, hopefully Disney won’t make any changes. Given the success of both films, I highly doubt we’ll have to worry.
Kevin Feige and the curators of the MCU have a whole new world of toys to play within the gigantic sandbox they’ve built over the years. Fitting the existence of mutants into an already fully realized world is no easy task.
It worked with Spider-Man given the character’s age difference fitting into the timeline. However, the X-Men are the forefront of an entire portion of the population that carry the mutant X-Gene. The transition will require some major creativity.
Perhaps the inclusion of infinity stones will play a big part in reshaping reality. Or maybe Marvel will hold off on putting everyone together and keep the universes separate for the time being. With Deadpool 2, The New Mutants, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix on the way, we should expect anything definite for a while.
Regardless of what they do and when, it’s an exciting day for Marvel. They finally have all their properties back.
