NO: Dangers of the Disney Fox Deal
By Ariel White
Most people already know the news, that Disney is officially buying Fox Network for a stunning 71 billion dollars. This deal is very controversial for a handful of reasons. Many people view this deal as beneficial for viewers and just the cinematic universe in general. However, there are people that would argue that claiming that this deal is a bad idea and will do more harm than good. I would agree with that statement, that Disney becoming the parent company of Fox would do more harm than good.

There’s no doubt that this deal could be beneficial, however, there are several downsides that outweigh the benefits. Including the fact that tons of people will lose their jobs. Deseret News quotes “Disney expects over $2 billion in synergies from the Fox acquisition, with the overwhelming majority of that from cost savings meaning job cuts.” Long story short, tons of people could lose their jobs, and many people are always talking about on the news how people are out of jobs and ways they can stop that and this deal is just gonna increase the rate of unemployed people. Plus, “In order to reduce costs by upwards of $2 billion, we believe Disney will need to cut well over 5,000 jobs and the number could easily swell toward 10,000 given the high degree of overlap between the two companies around the world.” The amount of people that are estimated to be out of jobs is mindblowing.

The merger of Fox and Disney could create many new mashups with different superheros which would be good, but it could also create a monopoly in the film industry. What Ii mean by this that due to this deal many other companies will be forced to merge with Disney. Since dDisney now owns fox the franchise has only grown larger which makes it hard for other industry to compete, therefore they will have to merge with Disney which would severely limit the number of options and they will become less and less.

The last main disadvantage to this deal is that 20th Ccentury fox and Ffox searchlight, which are now both owned by Ddisney, at least try to make movies for adults. However, they now belong to a company only interested in making blockbusters. Disney doesn’t really make that many movies per year, but when they do it’s mainly aimed toward a blockbuster audience, which is families, teens, and and young men in there early 20’s. Disney is, what is really called, a blockbuster business, making lots of Marvel, Star Wars, and animated films while rarely straining for much more. Fox certainly tries to play the blockbuster game, but most of its major franchises, from X-Mento Planet of the Apes, have seen stronger box office returns in the past. While it might be worth it to Disney to get the X-Men and Fantastic Four back in the Marvel fold, Fox itself doesn’t bring a ton of great franchise assets to the table. And though Oscars may not be incredibly important to Disney, it’s not as if the company wouldn’t like to win a Best Picture trophy someday. I believe since Disney now owns Fox the amount of “adult” movies will be limited and will be watered down. Which could possibly hurt the company severely.

In conclusion, the Disney- Fox deal will make a big impact on upcoming movies, but, that impact may not be as good as everyone says. Many people will lose their jobs, it will create a monopoly in the movie business, plus, Fox movies and any adult movies will and most likely be watered down due to Ddisney’s younger audience. Now how good does that sound?

YES: Cinematic Universe Positively
By Ryan Wolfelsperger

On July 27th of 2018 Disney and 21st Century Fox officially approved of the deal for most of Fox’s properties. Many are excited for the merger seeing as it will bring the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and they will be fully owned by Marvel Studios. This is a big deal for many long time hardcore superhero fans because us comics book geeks are almost positive of what is to come from this.
Some of the Marvel Characters that have appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are most well-known for teaming up with or fighting with characters like Wolverine, the Thing or even the long time X-Men villain, Magneto. Now that these characters will all be living under one roof, some of these crossovers can happen. Marvel Studios has portrayed some of its best comic book runs into the movies like Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War without the use of some of their heaviest hitters like the Wolverine and the Fantastic Four, but now Marvel won’t have too. Now they have so much more freedom to venture the possibilities that await with the new characters that will be provided.

Marvel Studios has been known to showcase some very talented actors in their movies thus far. Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans have been the leaders of this universe as Iron Man and Captain America respectively. Some actors have made very small characters blow up in popularity like Tom Hiddleston as Loki or Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger. Many actors as of the merger have shown interest in being characters that will know be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Just a few weeks ago, Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter himself) said that he was interested in playing one of if not the most popular member of the X-Men out there, James “Logan” Howlett/The Wolverine. This is just one more prime example of a major actor wanting to be involved in the universe.

And the most obvious reason to why this merger will be so spectacular is the fact that this new deal could bring the characters from the comics to the big or small screen so much better than before. 21st Century Fox have had some critically acclaimed movies like Deadpool, Deadpool 2, Logan and X-Men: Days of Future Past as well as some box office duds like X-Men: The Last Stand and the most recent variation of the Fantastic Four. Most movies have been completely shot down by critics after release which has not happened to Marvel Studios (except for Thor and Thor: The Dark World but we don’t like to talk about that) and so I don’t think that it is so crazy to say that Kevin Feige and his group at Marvel Studios will portray these exciting new characters badly. I think that it will honestly be ten times better.