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Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

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Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#271

Post by upvotinglurker »

bighi wrote: post #134
bovermyer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as Disney can take Star Wars: ANH and X-Men licensing rights away from Fox, then fine.

Yes, nobody wants good movies like Logan! Know what we need more? Mediocre movies like the ones Marvel have been making. Know what's better than a good movie? A shallow movie full of forced jokes. Now we can see the Fantastic Four facing space pirates that sleep with pacifiers in their mouths, maybe hugging teddy bears to. That would be a good movie!

The argument that seems to be espoused in this comment, and varous others[0], is that Disney only wants to make "dumbed down" traditional US-style children's / "family" movies and therefore will turn any company they buy to that purpose. Several of the hosts on pop culture/entertainment industry podcasts I listen to have said the same thing.

However, it seems to me (and at least Peter Sciretta at SlashFilm Daily has expressed a similar sentiment) that this would not necessarily be Disney's strategy for Fox. As was recently pointed out on the SlashFilm podcast, Disney already has so many subsidiaries making family-friendly movies (Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, etc.) that they can hardly find enough sufficiently spaced-out weekends on the calendar to release them all. Movies like Logan, and shows like those on FX and FXX, have been critically acclaimed and financially successful. Would it make more sense for Disney to turn Fox into yet another family-friendly content company to compete with all their other family-friendly content companies that are already potentially cannibalizing each other, or use it to expand into a new adult-oriented niche with existing critically acclaimed and financially successful content?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15922177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15922087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15923597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15922605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15922925

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#272

Post by pkill17 »

adamlett wrote: post #267
aqme28 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Netflix approaching monopoly? If anything I've seen a ton of competition coming up from the likes of Amazon, HBO, and a billion smaller services.

Netflix is on the trajectory to becoming a monopoly, yes. HBO is hamstrung by its lucrative cable tv deals in the US, which prevents it from competing effectively with Netflix in the streaming market. They will keep making money hand over fist from cable tv until suddenly they don’t. If Netflix is Google, HBO is Yahoo. Amazon in this analogy, of course would be Bing. At a glance they seem to have what is required to…

If HBO is hamstrung by lucrative deals, then it stands to think that HBO's own deal making has prevented them from usurping Netflix. To my knowledge, I haven't heard of Netflix having overtly anti-competitive behavior but I'm all ears for examples. It seems as though HBO is capable of competing, but they have to make a risky play and get out from their cable TV bubble to do so, which is no fault of Netflix.

If anything, this shows that the monolithic telecoms that have large stakes in these cable TV brands are facilitating monopolies elsewhere because likely competitors are locked into their current markets.

EDIT: to be clear, HBO's unsuccessful attempt to be level with Netflix in the streaming arena is more "don't want to" and not "can't". I wouldn't call a lack of wanting to be monopolistic. If HBO suddenly turned around and wanted to compete directly with Netflix and got boxed out by Netflix in some way, i.e. Netflix striking deals with Level 3 or similar providers to prevent HBO from getting equal treatment, then there's a strong case for them being labeled a monopoly.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#273

Post by upvotinglurker »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #22
empath75 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know Disney released Pulp Fiction and Scream right?

I do, yes. Disney took incredible heat and a number of shareholders bailed as a result of Miramax releasing Pulp Fiction , and Weinstein had to fight for it, if I recall my film history. Disney also refused to allow Miramax to release Dogma , which is history that is guiding my surprise. That studio is part of the reason they started being more careful, and they finally divested Miramax in 2010. It’ll be interesting…

1999 (Dogma), not to mention 1994 (Pulp Fiction), was a long time ago, and things do change. Since then I remember Disney being one of the first big companies to get in the national news for offering same-sex partner benefits; they didn't seem to care how many people that offended.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#274

Post by bovermyer »

nickik wrote: post #81
bovermyer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market freedom leads to consolidation which leads to the exact opposite of competition. This is why the United States, contrary to popular opinion, is not a purely capitalist nation; it is instead a hybrid between socialism and capitalism. Reasonable regulation protects the free market.

Its simply false that market freedom always leads to consolidation. There is a very complex interplay between transaction cost, information problems, scaling economics and so on. You are just throwing out populist phrases because they sound good. The solution is not to declare some kind of neo-progressive trust busting but locking at individual industries and figuring out why they are consolidating and if it will be…

I'm oversimplifying, but I'm not "throwing out populist phrases because they sound good."

Be careful not to conflate your reaction and my intention.

I agree that intellectual property needs reform, but that's a separate issue.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#275

Post by bovermyer »

bighi wrote: post #142
bovermyer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market freedom leads to consolidation which leads to the exact opposite of competition. This is why the United States, contrary to popular opinion, is not a purely capitalist nation; it is instead a hybrid between socialism and capitalism. Reasonable regulation protects the free market.

I think you meant Communism, not socialism. But good point anyway.

No, I very specifically meant socialism. Communism is a child of socialism, not the other way around.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#276

Post by ralmidani »

guntars wrote: post #260
ralmidani wrote: post #202

As an American, I've always found it mind-boggling how average Americans cheer these types of M/As. The argument is that consolidation leads to more "efficiency" and "synergy", but those benefits are usually not passed down to consumers (actually, market domination allows a company like Disney to price-gouge even more on movies and merchandise).

This is basically just entertainment (Fox News included) so they can do whatever they want. If this was healthcare, for example, it would require a bit more scrutiny IMO.

As noted in this thread, the entertainment industry is almost single-handedly responsible for the draconian Copyright laws in the US. So the harm caused by consolidation can extend beyond entertainment (think software).

Also, there is almost no alarm being raised by consolidation in healthcare, such as the CVS/Aetna deal.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#277

Post by upvotinglurker »

azemetre wrote: post #262
upvotinglurker wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: why do people want this so badly? Just nostalgia? (Too young to have see the OT movies in theaters, so I don't have that) For me, sticking the cheesy fox logo and fanfare at the beginning of the movies would make them worse, not better.

People want a re-release of the unaltered OT.

Sure, the actual movie part - but the 20th century fox fanfare at the beginning? (I have heard nostalgia expressed specifically for that)

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#278

Post by bluthru »

bighi wrote: post #138
paulus_magnus2 wrote: post #60

Why not go all the way and merge all companies into 1 big one. Being born on the wrong side of the iron curtain I already saw economy based on monopolies. Communism failed because prices were centrally set. We knew how to build useful things (that don't break 1 day after warranty) but not which ones to build and how many. (wiki) A price signal is information conveyed to consumers and producers, via the price charged…

That's what I've been saying for a long time. Some people say "it's just capitalism working as intended", but that's not exactly true. A lot of the mechanisms of capitalism depend on competition. Capitalism without competition is no different from Communism or any other system in which one party rules supreme.

This is why I question the idea that large social networks should be able to remove whatever they want. It would be nice if there were consumer protection laws to help balance the scales a bit. For example, some of YouTube's censorship and demonetization seem pretty aggressive.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#279

Post by pkamb »

upvotinglurker wrote: post #233
muterad_murilax wrote: post #36

So, will the Fox fanfare return to all Star Wars films, past and present, from now on?

Serious question: why do people want this so badly? Just nostalgia? (Too young to have see the OT movies in theaters, so I don't have that) For me, sticking the cheesy fox logo and fanfare at the beginning of the movies would make them worse, not better.

> cheesy

That's the point. Star Wars was/is an homage to Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers -type serial pulps, and the moviehouse feel of that 20th Century Fox fanfare can't be beat.

Re: Disney to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox

#280

Post by bluthru »

henrik_w wrote: post #86
paulus_magnus2 wrote: post #60

Why not go all the way and merge all companies into 1 big one. Being born on the wrong side of the iron curtain I already saw economy based on monopolies. Communism failed because prices were centrally set. We knew how to build useful things (that don't break 1 day after warranty) but not which ones to build and how many. (wiki) A price signal is information conveyed to consumers and producers, via the price charged…

Relevant story from The Onion (almost 20 years ago): "Just Six Corporations Remain" https://www.theonion.com/just-six-corporations-remain-181956...

"Proud to be one of America's 8 companies."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo

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