But it's too soon. Doing Dark Phoenix when we barely know Jean in the first place?
News FOX selling out to Disney?
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
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But it's too soon. Doing Dark Phoenix when we barely know Jean in the first place?
Barely know Jean???? The movie series is 17 years old! And they set up the Phoenix Saga in the second movie 14 years ago. It went awry due to the director change, but now the story is back on track, and they foreshadowed Phoenix again in Apocalypse. The fact that it's a new timeline with younger versions of the characters doesn't mean it isn't building on the audience's awareness of what came before in the franchise. This is the payoff of something that's been a long time coming.
That's looking at it too literally. From a real-world perspective, of course a younger version of a character is still going to be influenced by the audience's and writers' awareness of that character's older self from previous works. The whole creative point is that it is the same character seen from a fresh angle. Heck, Kelvin Timeline Kirk in the first two movies is based directly on the popular audience stereotype of Kirk as a womanizing renegade, and a great deal of Into Darkness relies (unfortunately) on resonance with the audience's awareness of The Wrath of Khan. For all the pretense of being "new," the films are thoroughly dependent on what came before. And the overall arc of the three movies is to show how he and the rest of crew became the familiar characters that we know and formed their familiar relationships. Any "younger version" prequel is going to have the characters' familiar older version looming over it, and will usually be about showing how and why the character's familiar traits became established (e.g. Young Sherlock Holmes or Smallville).
Also, look at it in real-world production terms. Bryan Singer had plans to do the Dark Phoenix story in the third X-Men film, plans that he set up in X2. He didn't get to tell the story he intended, but the groundwork was still laid. Now he's been given a second chance to do that story as it was planned the first time. So of course Jean Grey is going to be approached in basically the same way, regardless of the timeline shift or the recasting.
Besides, it doesn't make sense to say audiences can't understand a story about a change in a character they don't already know thoroughly from multiple previous stories. I mean, Carrie wasn't the third or fourth film about Carrie White; it was the first and only one. But the story of what happened to her was still easy enough to follow, and Dark Phoenix isn't that different. Even if we'd never met Jean Grey before, a well-written Dark Phoenix movie could establish her well enough to make the story work.
A Deadline analysis of the bigger picture of what the Disney-Fox merger means:
https://deadline.com/2017/12/what-h...eal-happens-broadcast-news-sports-1202220975/
In short, this would make Disney the most dominant studio in decades and might cripple the FOX Network's ability to show scripted programming. While it might be good for Marvel, it would have a lot of potentially negative impact, as The A.V. Club points out:
https://www.avclub.com/look-we-all-want-to-watch-avengers-and-x-men-fight-bu-1821124100
https://deadline.com/2017/12/what-h...eal-happens-broadcast-news-sports-1202220975/
In short, this would make Disney the most dominant studio in decades and might cripple the FOX Network's ability to show scripted programming. While it might be good for Marvel, it would have a lot of potentially negative impact, as The A.V. Club points out:
https://www.avclub.com/look-we-all-want-to-watch-avengers-and-x-men-fight-bu-1821124100
I don't see how the Fox Network will survive in anything like its current form without its studio. The linked article says "observers do not see Fox continuing as a network focused on scripted programming," which pretty much means to me that it will be a shadow of its former self.
I also don't see the studio surviving without Fox Network. It seems like a stupid move unless all Disney cares about is the rights to old shows/properties.
I also don't see the studio surviving without Fox Network. It seems like a stupid move unless all Disney cares about is the rights to old shows/properties.
As a scripted studio, I agree it won't survive, but I have a feeling they don't care about that anymore and are much more interested in Fox "News" and sports.
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/12/07/is-the-disney-fox-faster-than-the-netflix-hare
Another interesting article about the subject, with some (possibly worrysome?) speculations. I don't know if I want Alien, Predator or Die Hard to become TV franchises. On the other hand, those series' glory days are long gone, so maybe new approaches aren't so bad.
Everything being a franchise from here on out till the end of time isn't very exciting either, but I guess we're well on the way to that anyway.
Another interesting article about the subject, with some (possibly worrysome?) speculations. I don't know if I want Alien, Predator or Die Hard to become TV franchises. On the other hand, those series' glory days are long gone, so maybe new approaches aren't so bad.
Everything being a franchise from here on out till the end of time isn't very exciting either, but I guess we're well on the way to that anyway.
I think that might actually be their endgame.
It kind of feels like how McDonald's became so huge because it was the biggest real estate company in the world, or Google buying Motorola for something like 13,000 patents so it could defend Android in court. Disney sees ways to print money through ownership of Fox's IP, and therefore it wants it.
Deadline's piece speculates that Sony or Warner Bros. might be interested in buying the network so that they can have a major TV broadcast outlet like their competitors (I guess Deadline doesn't consider The CW a major outlet).
But if the studio is consolidated under Disney, it could sell shows to ABC or Freeform. Of course, ideally any studio should be able to get its shows on any network, but the article explained how that's becoming more financially untenable in the current media landscape, that broadcast networks need such studio partnerships to survive.
Probably incorporate it into BAMTech and use that to sell it to other companies.
Disney would also have to buy Time Warner's stake besides Comcast's for that to happen. My guess is Disney will sell or trade Fox's stake. Comcast would be interested, as would Sony, but I doubt Disney would be willing to give Comcast a majority of Hulu. My guess is the Fox stake would be used as leverage to get the full rights to Spider-Man from Sony and perhaps Men in Black as well. Viacom might also be interested in the stake, but I think that's a long shot. Yet, if they were and Disney couldn't make a deal with Sony for the stake, Disney would probably gladly take cash or they might try to get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise or perhaps the Hasbro franchises distribution rights from Viacom.
Well, the Fox deal alone would bring Disney's Hulu share up to majority (60%) control. I think it would make sense to try to leverage that platform for Disney properties if possible.
The CW only shows network programming for 10 hours a week; Fox shows roughly twice that once you add in their weekend shows (sports on both days, scripted shows on Sundays).
Thing is they would have to either share the profits with Comcast and Time Warner or buy their shares out after spending so much on Fox to have more content for their new streaming network. It seems after investing so much in creating their own streaming outlet far more likely for them to let go of Fox's Hulu stake. Plus, the Feds in my opinion should make them choose between having a majority of Hulu or their own outlet.
On the other hand keeping Hulu probably means Disney doesn't get as screwed when Net Neutrality gets scraped as Comcast and AT&T (if the merger goes through) aren't probably going to throttle or block a streaming service they have stake in.