What Next for Disney

On July 31, 1995, The Walt Disney Company announced an agreement to merge with Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion.


A few years after the ABC merger, the Simpson's Predicted a Disney takeover of the 20th Century Fox .

Today, of course, the acquisition of ABC is considered small potatoes in media ownership.

Wouldn't the next logical step be to take over a distribution company?

1. AT&T-DirecTV Subscribers: 25.3 million
2. Comcast Subscribers: 22.5 million (NBC Universal)
3. Charter Communications Subscribers: 17.2 million
Six months after it closed the purchases of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Charter was said to have caught the eye of Verizon, a combination many consider too costly and too hard to pass by regulators.
4. Dish Network Subscribers: 13.7 million
5. Verizon Communications Subscribers: 4.7 million
6. Cox Communications Subscribers: 4.1 million
7. Altice USA* Subscribers: 3.6 million
8. Frontier Communications Subscribers: 1.5 million

Quote: Pacomartin

Wouldn't the next logical step be to take over a distribution company?

Vertical integration? If so the more logical step might be to get one overseas, not the USA.

Quote: AZDuffman

Vertical integration? If so the more logical step might be to get one overseas, not the USA.

You're probably correct. It might not really be TV where Disney thinks it is getting the most out of the merger. Disney has been trying to get the rights back to all the Marvel comic characters, Spiderman from Sony, The Hulk from Universal, plus all the primary characters from Paramount pictures.

Fox has pretty much wasted the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Elektra. Fox has done well with their ten X-men movies, but Disney probably think s they have the potential to be billion dollar franchises if they integrate them with the other Marvel characters.

Studio Worldwide Marvel
Par. $623.90 Iron Man 2
Par. $585.20 Iron Man
Par. $449.30 Thor
Par. $370.60 Captain America: The First Avenger

BV $1,518.80 Marvel's The Avengers
BV $1,405.40 Avengers: Age of Ultron
BV $1,214.80 Iron Man 3
BV $1,153.30 Captain America: Civil War
BV $863.60 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
BV $843.70 Thor: Ragnarok
BV $773.30 Guardians of the Galaxy
BV $714.30 Captain America: The Winter Soldier
BV $677.70 Doctor Strange
BV $657.80 Big Hero 6
BV $644.60 Thor: The Dark World
BV $519.30 Ant-Man

Fox $783.10 Deadpool
Fox $747.90 X-Men: Days of Future Past
Fox $616.80 Logan
Fox $543.90 X-Men: Apocalypse
Fox $459.40 X-Men: The Last Stand
Fox $414.80 The Wolverine
Fox $407.70 X2: X-Men United
Fox $373.10 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Fox $353.60 X-Men: First Class
Fox $296.30 X-Men

Fox $330.60 Fantastic Four (2005)
Fox $289.00 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Fox $168.00 Fantastic Four

Fox $179.20 Daredevil
Fox $56.70 Elektra

NL $155.00 Blade II
NL $131.20 Blade
NL $128.90 Blade: Trinity

Sony $890.90 Spider-Man 3
Sony $880.20 Spider-Man: Homecoming
Sony $821.70 Spider-Man
Sony $783.80 Spider-Man 2
Sony $757.90 The Amazing Spider-Man
Sony $709.00 The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Sony $228.70 Ghost Rider
Sony $132.60 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Uni. $263.40 The Incredible Hulk
Uni. $245.40 Hulk

You wonder if this whole Marvel comic book movies thing will dry up one day.

Quote: Pacomartin

You wonder if this whole Marvel comic book movies thing will dry up one day.

Comics are hot. Near my mother's house is a dead mall. I mean 10% occupied. One wing is empty except for this big comic book store and it has a huge space for what looks like people playing D&D or the like. Some kind of semi-private thing because you are supposed to check-in at the store before entering. But no matter what, it seems one of the main reasons people show up. Lots of activity.

That activity alone convinces me there is lots of legs left in the comics thing.

Quote: AZDuffman

That activity alone convinces me there is lots of legs left in the comics thing.

You may forget that the Marvel Comic characters were mostly created in the early 1960's. Stan Lee was born December 28, 1922.

There is an unwatchable 90 minute movie of the Fantastic Four. When Marvel was going bankrupt they sold the film rights for ready cash, and the company was about to lose the rights unless they made a film, so they made this movie that they never intended to release to fulfill the contract



Discover Comics were made into movies over a 20 years period with an incredibly wide range from failure to huge success.
15. Dec. 1978 Superman
19. Jun. 1981 Superman II
17. Jun. 1983 Superman III
21. Nov. 1984 Supergirl
24. Jul. 1987 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
23. Jun. 1989 Batman
19. Jun. 1992 Batman Returns
25. Dec. 1993 Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
16. Jun. 1995 Batman Forever
20. Jun. 1997 Batman and Robin

There were no widely successful Marvel comic movies until the year 2000.
1. Aug. 1986 Howard the Duck
21. Aug. 1998 Blade
14. Jul. 2000 X-Men

Stan Lee always wanted to play J Jonah Jameson (Spider Man's boss) in the movies, but by the time the movie was made he was 80 years old. The part was played by a man 30 years younger (J. K. Simmons).

Was listening to a report of how when Disney bought its Orlando location 50 years ago, they got a rather unique deal for a company. They have their own local Florida government for the land they own. Pretty handy when you can self-regulate.

Quote: rxwine

Was listening to a report of how when Disney bought its Orlando location 50 years ago, they got a rather unique deal for a company. They have their own local Florida government for the land they own. Pretty handy when you can self-regulate.

I just explained that to my brother last week. They did not want Orlando to annex them and rape them for property tax. The things Disney thinks of are simply amazing. Very rare they miss something big, the collapse of ESPN might be one of the rare things.

Quote: AZDuffman

Very rare they miss something big, the collapse of ESPN might be one of the rare things.

My brother was friends with an ESPN executive for a long time. Capital cities (owner of ABC and ESPN) was the very first company to set up a requirement in 1993 as soon as it was legal, that if cable wanted to rebroadcast ABC they must agree to carry ESPN2.

Long before Sling TV was founded on February 9, 2015 and began the slow collapse of cable in favor of streaming services ESPN was completely aware of their position as the most expensive channel on cable. They thought that the government would require ala-carte fees for cable channels and there income stream as they knew it would collapse.

So the collapse did not take them by surprise.

Quote: Pacomartin

My brother was friends with an ESPN executive for a long time. Capital cities (owner of ABC and ESPN) was the very first company to set up a requirement in 1993 as soon as it was legal, that if cable wanted to rebroadcast ABC they must agree to carry ESPN2.

Long before Sling TV was founded on February 9, 2015 and began the slow collapse of cable in favor of streaming services ESPN was completely aware of their position as the most expensive channel on cable. They thought that the government would require ala-carte fees for cable channels and there income stream as they knew it would collapse.

So the collapse did not take them by surprise.

Disney bought ABC in 1996. ESPN was on the march and considered the hidden gem of the deal. While it was a money machine for 10 yeas of so, by the mid-2000s the collapse had started. It was not ala carte that started it as we have seen. It was people deciding to pull the whole cable plug.

The end of Disney was December of 1966.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney