As if The Walt Disney Company didn’t already wield an intimidating level of influence in the pop culture landscape, the colossal entertainment conglomerate is all set to obtain a whole studio’s worth of major properties after the company’s $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox.
As you may well know already, this will pave the way for dozens of Marvel characters to come home to the MCU, most notably the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the various enemies and associates of those respective superhero teams. But the acquisitions don’t come close to stopping there.
ComicBook.com have helpfully compiled a long list of properties that the House of Mouse will be getting in the merger deal, and you can feast eyes on some of the biggest names below:
- X-Men
- Deadpool
- The Fantastic Four
- The Simpsons
- Avatar
- Family Guy
- American Dad!
- King of the Hill
- Bob’s Burgers
- Alien and Predator
- The X-Files
- American Horror Story
- It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
- Ice Age, Rio, and Blue Sky Studios
- Home Alone
- Miracle on 34th Street
- The Sound of Music
- Planet of the Apes
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
Whew. Let’s take a second to soak this all in. Along with the various Marvel properties, Disney will own the market on animated sitcoms, possibly closing the book on several decades’ worth of Fox jokes on The Simpsons (though we’ll see if Bart still thinks Mickey Mouse is “the mascot of an evil corporation,” as he says in The Simpsons Movie).
Moreover, the company will own a few more beloved franchises in the horror, comedy and sci-fi veins, not to mention several family favorites to add to their already unparalleled catalogue of works that dominated your childhood. As for Fox Searchlight, this prestigious production house served as the indie wing of its parent company, distributing such acclaimed and award-winning works as 12 Years a Slave, Birdman, The Shape of Water, Black Swan and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
The above list could’ve gone on longer but you likely get the point. In short, Disney is soon to have a monopoly on your free time, and the effects of this historical deal are going to be bigger than any one cinematic universe can contain.
