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(shí)一年多之久，迪士尼對(duì)21世紀(jì)福克斯的713億美元收購(gòu)交易終于正式完成！21世紀(jì)福克斯官方今日宣布迪士尼已完成對(duì)其收購(gòu)交易的分配，收購(gòu)已于美東時(shí)間3月20日凌晨12點(diǎn)02分正式生效。
迪士尼正式收購(gòu)的內(nèi)容包括：21世紀(jì)福克斯旗下的20世紀(jì)福克斯影業(yè)、20世紀(jì)福克斯電視公司、FX有線電視網(wǎng)與國(guó)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(jì)福克斯將分拆出福克斯廣播公司、福克斯電視臺(tái)、福克斯新聞?lì)l道、福克斯商業(yè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)、FS1、FS2、福克斯體育頻道、西班牙頻道和十大聯(lián)盟電視網(wǎng)，由這些資產(chǎn)組成為新的福克斯公司。
擴(kuò)充內(nèi)容和IP庫(kù)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'.
此次迪士尼對(duì)福克斯的歷史性收購(gòu)，使得“X戰(zhàn)警能不能大戰(zhàn)復(fù)仇者，死侍能不能見(jiàn)到蜘蛛俠”，變成了漫威迷們最關(guān)心的事情。隨后，《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(duì)迪士尼來(lái)說(shuō)，除了這些廣受歡迎的超級(jí)英雄IP，福克斯擁有的《辛普森一家》《猩球崛起》《異形》《冰河世紀(jì)》《阿凡達(dá)》等重量級(jí)IP，也擁有著巨大的想象力。這種想象力不僅體現(xiàn)在電影作品本身上，還包括后續(xù)的版權(quán)運(yùn)營(yíng)及開(kāi)發(fā)，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(guī)的奧斯卡有力競(jìng)爭(zhēng)者，名下的作品有：“為奴十二年”，“水形物語(yǔ)”和“寵兒”等，這足以填補(bǔ)迪士尼的一大空白：奧斯卡最佳影片獲獎(jiǎng)?wù)摺?/p>
為Disney+的構(gòu)建提供充分的內(nèi)容，對(duì)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(kāi)發(fā)時(shí)間更長(zhǎng)的電影項(xiàng)目，布局流媒體平臺(tái)也是迪士尼將自身?yè)碛蠭P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(huì)把重點(diǎn)放在布局流媒體上。收購(gòu)福克斯讓迪士尼對(duì)現(xiàn)有流媒體平臺(tái)hulu的持股達(dá)到了60%，并為即將要重磅推出的自家流媒體平臺(tái)Disney+擴(kuò)充了大量的獨(dú)家內(nèi)容，有助于與當(dāng)下勢(shì)頭正猛的流媒體巨頭奈飛等進(jìn)行對(duì)抗。
雖然目前迪士尼在流媒體上的內(nèi)容還遠(yuǎn)不如奈飛豐富，但迪士尼已經(jīng)要終止和奈飛的協(xié)議，以保證名下所擁有的內(nèi)容和IP只能在自家的流媒體平臺(tái)上播出。2019年迪士尼將在流媒體領(lǐng)域與奈飛等巨頭發(fā)生怎樣的交鋒，令人期待。
潛在的問(wèn)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.'
兩大巨頭的合并雖然帶來(lái)了可觀的機(jī)遇，但同時(shí)也存在著問(wèn)題與挑戰(zhàn)。首先，關(guān)于迪士尼如何或者是否會(huì)保留福克斯原有的大膽風(fēng)格其實(shí)就很重要。福克斯長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)一直致力于生產(chǎn)大投入的項(xiàng)目，熱衷于在技術(shù)層面上實(shí)現(xiàn)創(chuàng)新性開(kāi)發(fā)。伊麗莎白·泰勒的史詩(shī)級(jí)影片“埃及艷后”曾一度讓福克斯接近破產(chǎn)。
“我們是一個(gè)崇尚冒險(xiǎn)和創(chuàng)新的制片廠，”福克斯探照燈的創(chuàng)立者羅斯曼說(shuō)。“這是一個(gè)非常大膽和具有創(chuàng)造力的地方，這就是電影該有的樣子。”但相對(duì)保守求穩(wěn)的迪士尼是否會(huì)對(duì)這樣的影片感興趣呢？例如，“死侍”的創(chuàng)作者羅伯特·利弗爾德就曾表示福克斯的X-Force電影計(jì)劃已被擱淺，這就是“合并的受害者”。
'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(gè)像福克斯一樣的歷史性帝國(guó)的落幕都是令人悲傷的，”備受尊敬的電影歷史學(xué)家邁克爾·特羅揚(yáng)說(shuō)，“你可以在其他地方錄制，但當(dāng)你身處福克斯的時(shí)候，你會(huì)感受到莊嚴(yán)，你會(huì)感受到歷史。”
“對(duì)于任何一個(gè)學(xué)習(xí)電影史的學(xué)生來(lái)說(shuō)，這是悲傷的一天，我認(rèn)為這對(duì)觀眾來(lái)說(shuō)可能也是如此，”福克斯前董事長(zhǎng)兼索尼電影公司現(xiàn)任首席執(zhí)行官湯姆·羅斯曼說(shuō)，“這意味著電影市場(chǎng)的多樣性將會(huì)減少。”電影制片廠的減少可能意味著大電影項(xiàng)目數(shù)量的減少，這對(duì)消費(fèi)者和影院來(lái)說(shuō)都是一個(gè)問(wèn)題。
Sources: AP, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, CNN, CNET, Digital Spy, 刺猬公社，壹娛觀察; compiled by He Jieqiong)
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