Disney and Fox’s merger is officially complete

Walt Disneychairman and CEO Bob Iger and mogul Rupert Murdoch. (Photo Credit: The Walt Disney Company)

The Walt Disney Co. has closed its $71.3 billion acquisition of large parts of 21st Century Fox, expanding its global reach and content portfolio ahead of the planned launch of its own video streaming service. The massive Disney-Fox merger has become official at 12.02am Eastern Time on Wednesday (March 20).

Assets changing hands in the deal include: Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures, Fox Family, and Fox Animation; Fox’s television creative units, Twentieth Century Fox Television, FX Productions, and Fox21; FX Networks; National Geographic Partners; Fox Networks Group International; Star India; and Fox’s interests in Hulu, Tata Sky, and Endemol Shine Group.

The assets that Murdoch keeps provide a leaner, more focused entity built around the Fox broadcast network, Fox News Channel and Fox Sports. That company will live on as the Fox Corporation (FOXA).

(Photo: Screenshot from Twitter)

歷時一年多之久，迪士尼對21世紀福克斯的713億美元收購交易終於正式完成！21世紀福克斯官方今日宣佈迪士尼已完成對其收購交易的分配，收購已於美東時間3月20日凌晨12點02分正式生效。

迪士尼正式收購的內容包括：21世紀福克斯旗下的20世紀福克斯影業、20世紀福克斯電視公司、FX有線電視網與國家地理，以及福克斯30%的Hulu股份、39%的歐洲電視巨頭Sky股份、Star印度等。

而21世紀福克斯將分拆出福克斯廣播公司、福克斯電視臺、福克斯新聞頻道、福克斯商業網絡、FS1、FS2、福克斯體育頻道、西班牙頻道和十大聯盟電視網，由這些資產組成爲新的福克斯公司。

擴充內容和IP庫

Enriching Disney's content kingdom

File photo

By accomplishing this mega-deal, the Magic Kingdom of Disney is able to add 20th Century Fox alongside labels like Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm. While Spider-Man still resides with Sony, Disney now adds Deadpool, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four to its bench of Marvel characters.

Fox's most problematic son Deadpool has wasted no time in potentially making his new owners worry about what they've got themselves in to. On Twitter, actor Ryan Reynolds posted a pic of himself as Deadpool wearing Mickey Mouse ears while waving out the back of a school bus which read 'Disney'.

(Photo: Screenshot from Twitter)

此次迪士尼對福克斯的歷史性收購，使得“X戰警能不能大戰復仇者，死侍能不能見到蜘蛛俠”，變成了漫威迷們最關心的事情。隨後，《死侍》系列的扮演者瑞安-雷諾茲在社交媒體上曬出一張頭戴米老鼠帽子的“死侍”，慶祝加盟迪士尼的第一天。

In addition to popular superhero characters, Disney will gain control of some of the largest franchises in movies, including "Avatar," ''Alien" and "The Planet of the Apes." Fox's television studios also net Disney the likes of "Modern Family," ''This Is Us" and "The Simpsons" The ownership of these well-established IPs contains unpredictable potential in merchandising and other forms of further development.

而對迪士尼來說，除了這些廣受歡迎的超級英雄IP，福克斯擁有的《辛普森一家》《猩球崛起》《異形》《冰河世紀》《阿凡達》等重量級IP，也擁有着巨大的想象力。這種想象力不僅體現在電影作品本身上，還包括後續的版權運營及開發，這部分的收益是非常可觀的。

New banner of the Disney website

Furthermore, Fox Searchlight, the regularOscar contender behind films such as "12 Years a Slave," ''The Shapeof Water" and "The Favourite," could yield Disney something it'snever had before: a best picture winner at the Academy Awards.

此外，福克斯探照燈還是常規的奧斯卡有力競爭者，名下的作品有：“爲奴十二年”，“水形物語”和“寵兒”等，這足以填補迪士尼的一大空白：奧斯卡最佳影片獲獎者。

爲Disney+的構建提供充分的內容，對抗流媒體巨頭

Disney CEO Bob Iger stressed that Disney is "playing the long game," as studios gradually evolve their distribution models and revenue streams around more direct-to-consumer relationships, their own streaming service called Disney+ would be the company's "biggest priority" for 2019. It is set to compete with other video streaming subscription services such as Netflix, Apple and Amazon, and will complement Hulu, which Disney now has a 60% ownership stake in.

Disney is ending its streaming deal with Netflix so it can launch its own subscription platform as the exclusive streaming home for Disney movies, TV shows and other original programming.

Girding for this battle with Netflix, Apple and Amazon, Disney needs more content for its coming streaming platform, Disney+, and it wants control of its content across platforms. The takeover of 21st Century Fox is understood as a strategic aid to this point.

相比開發時間更長的電影項目，佈局流媒體平臺也是迪士尼將自身擁有IP最大化利用的重要一步。迪士尼CEO艾格在2018年就透露，2019年將會把重點放在佈局流媒體上。收購福克斯讓迪士尼對現有流媒體平臺hulu的持股達到了60%，併爲即將要重磅推出的自家流媒體平臺Disney+擴充了大量的獨家內容，有助於與當下勢頭正猛的流媒體巨頭奈飛等進行對抗。

雖然目前迪士尼在流媒體上的內容還遠不如奈飛豐富，但迪士尼已經要終止和奈飛的協議，以保證名下所擁有的內容和IP只能在自家的流媒體平臺上播出。2019年迪士尼將在流媒體領域與奈飛等巨頭髮生怎樣的交鋒，令人期待。

潛在的問題

Potential Challenges

The question of how or if Disney will inherit Fox's edginess matters because Fox has long built itself on big bets and technological gambits. It was the first studio built for sound. It was nearly bankrupted by the big-budget Elizabeth Taylor epic "Cleopatra."

(Photo: VCG)

"We were a studio of risk and innovation," says Rothman, who also founded Fox Searchlight. "It was a very daring place, creatively. That's what the movies should be." But will the more button-down Disney have the stomach for such movies? "Deadpool" creator Robert Liefeld, for example, has said Fox's plansfor an X-Force movie have been tabled, a "victim of the merger."

兩大巨頭的合併雖然帶來了可觀的機遇，但同時也存在着問題與挑戰。首先，關於迪士尼如何或者是否會保留福克斯原有的大膽風格其實就很重要。福克斯長期以來一直致力於生產大投入的項目，熱衷於在技術層面上實現創新性開發。伊麗莎白·泰勒的史詩級影片“埃及豔後”曾一度讓福克斯接近破產。

“我們是一個崇尚冒險和創新的製片廠，”福克斯探照燈的創立者羅斯曼說。“這是一個非常大膽和具有創造力的地方，這就是電影該有的樣子。”但相對保守求穩的迪士尼是否會對這樣的影片感興趣呢？例如，“死侍”的創作者羅伯特·利弗爾德就曾表示福克斯的X-Force電影計劃已被擱淺，這就是“合併的受害者”。

"It's sad when any historical empirelike that comes to end," says Michael Troyan, a well-respected film historian."You can record in other places but when you're on a lot like Fox, you feel the gravitas, you feel the history."

"It's a sad day for students of film history and I think it's potentially a sad day for audiences too," said Tom Rothman, former chairman of Fox and the current chief of Sony Pictures."There will just be less diversity in the marketplace."

Fewer studios could potentially mean fewer movies. That's a concern for both consumers and theater owners.

“任何一個像福克斯一樣的歷史性帝國的落幕都是令人悲傷的，”備受尊敬的電影歷史學家邁克爾·特羅揚說，“你可以在其他地方錄製，但當你身處福克斯的時候，你會感受到莊嚴，你會感受到歷史。”

“對於任何一個學習電影史的學生來說，這是悲傷的一天，我認爲這對觀衆來說可能也是如此，”福克斯前董事長兼索尼電影公司現任首席執行官湯姆·羅斯曼說，“這意味着電影市場的多樣性將會減少。”電影製片廠的減少可能意味着大電影項目數量的減少，這對消費者和影院來說都是一個問題。

(Sources: AP, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, CNN, CNET, Digital Spy, 刺蝟公社，壹娛觀察; compiled by He Jieqiong)