New Report Claims Disney's Purchase of Fox Might've Hurt the Company - Inside the Magic

Disney might regret buying 20th Century Fox Studios as the past couple of years haven’t been kind to them.

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$71 Billion was the price the company paid to acquire Fox. The Walt Disney Company might have earned back some of that investment with James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), but the deal may have seriously hurt Disney. Despite acquiring the rights to Avatar, The Simpsons, the X-Men, and Fantastic Four, Disney’s purchase hasn’t made a lot of return investment.

Marvel Studios has insisted that the Fantastic Four and X-Men can’t appear in the next year or two as the company continues to explore other minor characters before bringing in their major super hero teams. Besides continuing the series, The Simpsons have been a steady source for Disney+, but nothing too groundbreaking.

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Avatar has been their only source of return investment, but the franchise demands a lot of money for their insane budget and editing costs. This means that the true profit margins aren’t exactly the best for Disney, and the company might suffer from its investment.

According to The Wrap, Disney originally bought Fox to create more entertainment for the adult audience with movies set in the Planet of the Apes franchise, but those plans didn’t work out. With the pandemic and movies not doing so well at the box office, Disney had to reevaluate their business options.

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By focusing entirely on Disney+ and other Disney projects, the company let upcoming Fox projects released without any care for their success. This led to those projects bombing and not doing so well. Fans weren’t happy to see this, as none of the Fox IPs have been worked on since the Disney acquisition.

When the X-Men and Fantastic Four arrive in theaters, Disney can see some of their return investment, and work on Fox-related projects would really help them earn back what they spent. With Disney quickly bringing Bob Iger back to helm the affairs at Disney, it’s clear that money is a concern for the company, and Chapek’s way of doing things wasn’t working out.

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Hopefully, Disney can figure out how to make the most of their purchase since selling Fox to another competitor would be a foolish mistake for them. If anything, Disney could maximize the use of the studio if they actually put some love and care into creating new movies for adult audiences that lean away from the family-friendly focus that Disney usually is known for.

With parental controls on Disney+, the company can have the best of both worlds, but they need to do the work necessary to make their purchase worthwhile, or else their purchase would’ve been a financial disaster.

Do you think Disney should’ve bought Fox? Let us know what you think!