Could Rupert Murdoch’s Failed Bid To Acquire Time Warner Result in MARVEL-DC Merger?

[Hush]

Never gonna happen Warner Brothers simply does not want to be bought by another studio. They rearranged purposefully to make Fox stockholders antsy, now if a company like Apple or Google did they would maybe be more willing as it only benefits them but I don't see them being bought anytime soon and I don't think THE FCC would be on board. DC & MARVEL need to be separate, it's better for business.

 

[Micromind]

I could see WB agreeing to bids by Google or Apple or Microsoft just so that it insulates them from hostile bids from likes of Fox and Disney.

 

[Infinight888]

Monopoly concerns aside, there are two terrible reasons I REALLY want this to happen:

1. Justice League and Avengers sharing the same universe would be insane. Doctor Doom teaming up with Lex Luthor, Mutants in Gotham, Thanos fighting Superman.
2. Jon Stewart very possibly might become the owner of CNN.

 

[Tec15]

Will never happen, and why would anyone with any sense want it to happen anyway?

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

Monopoly concerns aside, there are two terrible reasons I REALLY want this to happen:

1. Justice League and Avengers sharing the same universe would be insane. Doctor Doom teaming up with Lex Luthor, Mutants in Gotham, Thanos fighting Superman.
2. Jon Stewart very possibly might become the owner of CNN.

Doctor Doom is at Fox

 

[Tec15]

Monopoly concerns aside, there are two terrible reasons I REALLY want this to happen:

1. Justice League and Avengers sharing the same universe would be insane. Doctor Doom teaming up with Lex Luthor, Mutants in Gotham, Thanos fighting Superman.
2. Jon Stewart very possibly might become the owner of CNN.

"Sure, Disney acquiring Warner Bros would lead to a massive, inefficient Leviathan less than the sum of it's parts, diminishing returns instead of economics of scale, less competition and quality, massive layoffs due to consolidation resulting in thousands losing their jobs, and etc, etc but as long as I can see some terrible crossovers that were already meh when they occurred in the 90's, it would all have been worth it."

Peak fanboy entitlement. Subject is moot however, as it'll never happen. Strange, how some baseless clickbait speculation from the Hollywood Reporter could morph into a supposedly serious discussion after some (willful) misinterpretation and gross exaggeration by the usual suspects at Newsarama and CBM.

 

[mat-chow]

Look out everyone, there's a new pro analyst on the boards. SMH

 

[Gamma Goliath]

Not saying I want it to happen or that it even will happen, but if disney came in control of DC they wouldn't bury DC, and I don't think they'll alter the properties in terms of comics, gaming or movies. And as far as crossovers go, I could see maybe a mini series or video game but thats as far as it goes, no movie crossovers.

 

[doink]

Like I said it's not going to happen, the THR article was just speculation on what companies could have the resources to bid on TW, and the article didn't even focus on Disney, it focused on the Chinese guy who owns AMC Theaters possibly wanting to buy TW.

There's no actual indication of Disney wanting to buy TW, and TW isn't interested in being bought right now. It probably wouldn't go through anyway.

 

[badgrammar]

Monopoly concerns aside, there are two terrible reasons I REALLY want this to happen:

1. Justice League and Avengers sharing the same universe would be insane. Doctor Doom teaming up with Lex Luthor, Mutants in Gotham, Thanos fighting Superman.
2. Jon Stewart very possibly might become the owner of CNN.

It would be fun in the short term, but people will get bored and forget about it in the long term, and you would end of having only one big comic book company rather than two.

 

[Hush]

If I had the money I would pry DC from Warner Bros. It would prolly cost around 4 billion or so and I would let them finish any ongoing productions at the time of purchase. After that was done I would take the feature division down maybe a different path than what they have planned now.

I would take the comic book portion of the company and fix it. Clean out the writers bullpen, get competent editors, cull the new submission box, up the trade production on older books that many can't find, I would keep the nu52 but put out a definitive encyclopedia and events would be limited to 1 event every year or two years with year long story arcs up for review before approval.

I'd take the video game aspect of DC and ratchet the effort on that up to 1,000 because honestly other than the arkham games and injustice DC hasn't done **** in the video game world.

As far as animation goes Batman would be limited to a bi-YEARLY status on DTV's, JLA to a yearly status DTV's, a new animated series every 3 years unless there aren't any ideas worth production, oh and we would finally get full length Blur quality full CGI movies.

As far as tangible merch, toys, clothing, already released shows, I would make a concerted effort to ensure that these products became MUST HAVES for kids again. Kids should have just as many Batman figures as they do Spider-Man, whether we like it or not Toys and other merch keep the shows and movies we love on the air. You just can't make the movies and shows soley to sell more toys, has to be more symbiotic than that. Phew done.

Long Post but damn if I'm not passionate about this subject.

 

[luis4u]

Microsoft in talks with Warner Bros over Xbox Entertainment Studios sale, Machinima merger


I wonder what that means for DC tv shows

 

[Hush]

I would say nothing as that is clearly something that Microsoft is going to Warner for and would likely be just a influx of Cash for Warner as I'm fairly certain they have no desire to be bought.

 

[luis4u]

I would say nothing as that is clearly something that Microsoft is going to Warner for and would likely be just a influx of Cash for Warner as I'm fairly certain they have no desire to be bought.

XES was the division of Microsoft responsible for developing and creating new original TV content for the Xbox platform, including shows like Every Street United and the upcoming Halo Nightfall series, under the 'Xbox Originals' brand. However, it seems that the business unit suffered from a lack of clear management and focus, and at a time when Microsoft was making necessary cuts, it was deemed an unnecessary drain on increasingly limited resources.

 

[Hush]

Yeah I know all that...

 

[Frodo]

Not saying I want it to happen or that it even will happen, but if disney came in control of DC they wouldn't bury DC, and I don't think they'll alter the properties in terms of comics, gaming or movies. And as far as crossovers go, I could see maybe a mini series or video game but thats as far as it goes, no movie crossovers.

Yeah. I think the strongest argument against it would be the competition argument in the sense that you may not want all your eggs in one batch. Diversity of the properties among two studios or various studios may be better in terms of getting the creative juices flowing. Other than that, alot of the other arguments I heard have been more fanboys fears about Disney somehow making characters like Batman more kid friendly and forcing characters into separate franchises and universes. The same argument was made about Disney buying Marvel, then buying Lucasfilm. I think while some concerns are valid , alot of it sounds like the usual sky is falling fan mentality with regards to any sort of change.

 

[metaphysician]

Ignore the improbability of Disney buying Time-Warner. . . if Disney did end up with the DC rights? I suspect their ultimate goal would be to make a "DC Studios" branch, akin to their Marvel Studios branch. There is a lot of IP to exploit, after all. The problem would be that they'd need to create said studio from scratch, as certainly no such studio exists in Time-Warner. It would be a tricky, and probably lengthy, process. They might try to leverage the experienced cadre at Marvel Studios, both in an advising role and with maybe a few personnel as seeds for the new studio.

( Hey, maybe we could give Loeb a promotion, and convince him to leave Marvel Studios for the new DC Studios! *eg* )

 

[Heretic]

While I don't see it happening, Id be fine with it. If I owned DC I would eliminate the vast majority of their characters. If I want the Fastest Man Alive, I'm not calling Flash, Kid Flash, Wally West Flash, Golden Age Flash and Female Flash to figure out who is fastest. DC is so lazy that they have become a business based on logos, not characters, and it has hurt them financially for decades. There only needs to be ONE Bat, ONE Aqua, ONE Lantern, ONE Robin etc etc etc. Once you eliminate the excess in DC, you are left with a few iconic characters, some cool B-level characters that deserve better treatment than they have gotten, and an awesome supernatural/Vertigo roster to work into your universe.

Also...as far as it hurting the comic book industry...I believe that the industry is in need of major change. The fact is that monthly comic books that come out constantly, regardless of story value is an outdated concept. I'd be fine with monthly black and white digital comics that are then collected into full color trade paperbacks that tell complete stories (start to finish storyarcs)...so you only get one Superman book per year, at most. In fact...I'd go one further and say that I'd love it if the comics all tied into the movie universe...so you'd have to be more careful about what you publish and how it affects continuity...so you have some characters on tv, some in movies, some in comics, and it all exists in the same reality. This means you couldn't publish 50 books a month, and I'm okay with that.

 

[Tec15]

Yeesh, I'm glad that for all of DC's shortcomings, some of the resident geniuses here with their "brilliant ideas" will never own DC comics.

 

[Nokio]

Google
The search giant most often is mentioned as a potential bidder, though Time Warner still has the historically awful AOL merger fresh in its memory. Still, Google has a track record of massive profits (unlike AOL at the time) and a hefty $385 billion market cap to back up a potential play.
Apple
As with Google, Apple's massive market cap ($567 billion), not to mention $38 billion in cash on hand, makes it an automatic potential bidder. Time Warner's giant library of film and TV content presumably would fit neatly into whatever plans the maker of iPads and iPhones has for its still-nascent Apple TV product. And, of course, iTunes always is looking for some video leverage as it goes to war with Netflix, Hulu and other online content services.

Google I would say probably not and I don't see it being a good for them. I agree about the Aol merger. Google may think twice, but then it's a profitable company. I don't know.

Apple on the other hand needs another game changer. Samsung seems to have the edge right now. I'm not sure acquiring Time Warner would be a game changer and then Jobs is no longer with us. He would know what to do I think with a Apple/WB merger to change the game. Apple has a lot of cash on hand but they don't need to buy WB if it's going to sink profits. I don't know.

 

[Infinight888]

Sure, Disney acquiring Warner Bros would lead to a massive, inefficient Leviathan less than the sum of it's parts, diminishing returns instead of economics of scale, less competition and quality, massive layoffs due to consolidation resulting in thousands losing their jobs, and etc, etc but as long as I can see some terrible crossovers that were already meh when they occurred in the 90's, it would all have been worth it.

Exactly. Glad we're on the same page here.

 

[mocomic]

The thought of, if Marvel bought DC they would destroy them is laughable. You don't buy things to destroy them. Only a real life Lex Luthor would do that. This is money, big money. Big money has one goal, more money.