Soon after that the "Walt Disney Co." will be the "Walt Disney World Co.". And remember "It all started with a mouse".
I'm old enough to remember when Disney was a mess and about on its last legs, particularly in the movie business. How things have changed.
Only the 1/3 that Fox owned. The IP is owned by Greenway Productions and DC Comics. (There's a long thread elsewhere about why it took 30 years to get the home video rights sorted out for Batman.) They would own the rights for syndication and streaming, but I think DC Comics would still get a piece of the revenue.
No, DC is owned by Warner. Any further consolidation in Hollywood would be strongly looked at for anti-trust issues.
You should read the excellent book Disney War to read about how things were turned around-it's a really great book
Warner Bros. really, really, really hates Disney, so I think this is as unlikely as a merger between GM and Ford or Sony and Panasonic. Yes, that's an interesting book. Michael Eisner's downfall was very interesting. I think he learned too late that it's unwise to piss off Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen and Steve Jobs at the same time. The worst Eisner story I can remember was when Pixar was working on Finding Nemo in late 2002, he said publicly, "I don't think the movie will do that well -- who wants to see a film about fish?" And then he heavily promoted the movie he was personally involved with, Treasure Planet. Needless to say, he chose poorly.
The studio I thought would be sold this year was Paramount, because they're doing very badly, just fired their top management, and they've still got a big library. I also thought for sure that Apple would buy either Sony Pictures or Paramount, but that hasn't happened. Apple literally has enough to buy the four other studios and four TV networks in Hollywood, and still have money left over ($800+ billion). I had no idea Fox had been quietly looking for a buyer for the last few months.
Apple stopped innovating a long time ago and they're going to crash and burn in a big way, and sooner than a lot of people think. It won't be pretty. The i(whatever) bubble is due to burst. An Apple without Steve Jobs is a scary, and rutterless thing.
Nothing to stop Warners selling DC to Disney though, if the amount was right. I mean they bought Star Wars, both (imo) are a licence to print money so you never know.
I only just bought the BluRay of this. I'm going to check they work before those two companies start fighting and it goes out of print for another 50 years or so until the copyright expires yeah right, as if Disney would let that happen. But, again, anything else I say will probably too political for the "no politics" rule so
I was thinking more about Disney's many misfires in the late-'70s and early-'80s, when things looked bleak for the studio, pre-Beauty And The Beast.
Speaking of Disney and their stupid vault, I wonder what this will mean for DVD's/BluRay's. Sure, everyone here is interested in "Star Wars" - and I would buy an original trilogy un-special edition without hesitation - but I'm still waiting on the fourth (and final) DVD release of "Duck Tales". I won't mention "The Gummy Bears", "Gargoyles", "Recess" or "Pepper Ann". Even Kim seems impossible. So I am suddenly not holding out much hope for "The Simpsons" releases to continue. "Family Guy" probably as the show was renewed due to its DVD sales. (The season 4 opening still cracks me up!) Not to mention I'm in the wrong country for DVD releases anyway. Heck, I'm still waiting on "Chronological Donald Volume 2" (don't tell me, I know). Then again, Disney isn't the only one to blame there. I'm still waiting on the other 18 Looney Tunes DVD's (imported), "Animaniacs" (imported), "Thundercats" (imported) and, to be completely honest, I'm technically still waiting on discs 4 to 9 of "Duck Tales" (imported), not to mention no word on a local release date yet for season 18 of "The Simpsons" on DVD. Rant rant rant. I'll stop now. No, I don't feel better. I feel more frustrated than when I started typing!
Here in the UK Disney charge more for their product as well. Any blu ray is around £6 here after it's been out a year but Disney ones rarely drop below £10.
A smart Apple would have snapped up Fox or another Hollywood studio. Fox had been shopping themselves for a while, going back a couple of years. They tried selling to WB but the purchase price wasn't high enough for Fox's liking.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been asked about this before, and he generally says, "owning a film studio is not our core business, so we're not interested at this time." Not that Apple has admitted they are investing billions of dollars in making new films & TV series for Apple TV streaming. Oh, you mean Black Cauldron and Great Mouse Detective and all that crap. The Ron Miller era was horrific.
Thats what happens when all that Star Wars money starts to roll in. The Force awakens over $2 trillion world wide Rogue One over a trillion world wide