Disney buying up 20th Century Fox?

You hear that sound? That’s the sound of billions of dollars being flooded over Rupert Murdoch so that one little mouse and his giant corporation can own the biggest single slice of entertainment pie in the modern age.

I’m talking about, of course, the recent acquisition of most of 20^th Century Fox by Disney, and some of the ramifications and possibilities it may have for…well, a crapload of franchises. If this wasn’t just entertainment it could be almost scary, like the actual pseudo-cyberpunk conglomerates looming out there, but enough about that. It was certainly not a cheap deal even for Disney (65-odd billion dollars is a fair amount of their spending capital)—but, seeing as their output is certainly pleasing audiences worldwide, I’d take it over say, the morass that is Sony Pictures buying it all up.

For now, the main question for people seems to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe—specifically, stuffing the X-Men into it. To which I say…eh, it wouldn’t be something I’d be thrilled by. Adding them in would’ve just about worked in the earlier films, but now, a decade in, it’d feel too forced for my tastes. It’d be like the way certain TV shows cram in new random elements to try and draw themselves out—and seeing as you probably have at least one example in your head of that by now, you know exactly what I mean. Rebooting the X-Men? Eh, sure, it’s not like their timeline could get any less convoluted. But if Infinity war ends not with a natural conclusion of sorts and instead has Thanos wave a magic glove to make psychic bald guys and Canadians in yellow spandex come out of the woodwork, I’m out.

Something more interesting would be taking Fantastic Four, and finally doing it properly now. Or screw that, taking Galactus and Doctor Doom, and doing them properly. Admittedly, after three extremely miserable attempts, I’m not sure most studios would try that, but hey, it took a bit before we got a good solid Wolverine flick. And at the end of the day, one can say Disney already did that particular superhero group right—it was just called The Incredibles.

Among other film assets include Avatar—which, perhaps in anticipation, Disney is apparently doing some sort of theme park thereof—and Titanic (I imagine they can decide to create a whole new cinematic universe by forcing James Cameron to combine those in some crazed crossover of, I dunno, ghost ships and glowing pterodactyls). There’s Ice Age, which might see yet more embarrassing sequels (it’s not like Disney can claim innocence in that, given by now they’ve probably released Cinderella 5: Oh God The Royal Toilet’s Jammed Again by now). And let’s not forget Die Hard—given that the latter instalments pretty much turned John McClaine into a reality-bending superhero that gargles bullet casings, he’d fit right in with Marvel.

Thought that was all? Not even close, mon ami. There’s Alien—and given what happened with Alien: Covenant, I’m not sure that’ll continue, but those who are interested in the theme park side of things might remember that Disney engineers once considered an attraction around that. Because when you think Disneyland, you think castles, parades, the classic characters, and acid-spitting nightmares from beyond. Still, given the billions of dollars spent here, they might as well get their money’s worth, and I might actually consider visiting.

And then we get to the television side of things. Hoo boy, this is the continent-sized list that really gets the attention of antitrust concerns in deals like this. Nicely wrapped up for the Mouse comes The Simpsons—one can hope that Bob Iger can finally put that one out of it’s misery, perhaps for no other reason than diminishing returns and an ageing cast. I mean they’ve got over 25 years of rerun material, so please, please, please let it end. I mean, I can hope at least. Along that comes Family Guy—making Seth MacFarlane very, very nervous about the anti-Semitism jokes he’s made at Disney’s expense over the years, probably. Perhaps if the Alien thing goes through, they can also have Peter Griffin as a mascot at Disneyland as well.

Can’t forget X-Files—which also had a reboot recently, of varying results, and with how it’s shaping up I’m not sure they’d be able to stretch it out beyond that. But imagine the crossover potential here—like Mulder and Scully investigating the strange, bizarre facsimiles of human beings, most likely from another planet or bred in sinister genetic laboratories, that apparently make up most of the casts of Disney Channel movies. It’d be even more horrifying that the episode that had Gillian Anderson do kung-fu in a virtual reality game (I wish I was kidding).

There’s also Joss Whedon shows ripe for reboots like Firefly and Buffy. Buffy I honestly never got into, and while most of Firefly’s cast is older or has lost interest, the surge of scifi on Netflix shows that something like that could very well be viable now. Of course, there’s the whole thing that Disney is making a Han Solo film already, but given how that’s shaping up, this proves a very useful backup for them. However, with Joss probably not on the best of terms with them after his experience with Avengers, I’m not sure if it could pan out even if they tried.

And beyond that, there’s even more shows in the archive that Disney could use to pad out their supposed streaming service they’re working on. MASH, 24, Arrested Development, Life on Mars, Empire, The Orville, Malcolm in the Middle…well, okay, probably not all of them, but that’s just to give you a picture of the sheer ludicrous amounts of titles here.

So, at the end of it all, what do I really think about this? I dunno, really. Perhaps if they were wresting control of FOX News from Murdoch, I’d be much happier, but for now, there’s a lot to deal with, and so long as Disney isn’t run by frothing lunatic monkeys like a couple of entertainment corporations I can name, it’s something I can live with. Maybe some properties that have been mismanaged will be given another chance, or will be left to languish, or have all sorts of bizarre stuff done with them. It’s a much bigger picture than Marvel, and Disney will be smart enough to put this mostly up to subsidiaries as they have done, but it’s definitely the start of a new era, and one I intend to watch pretty closely. Be it for Deadpool entering the MCU, or for everything else…