The Rebooted "Keep Hope Alive" (that the rights can revert back to Marvel) Thread - - - - - - - - - Part 18

[Willie Lumpkin]

UK government clears rival Sky bids

Interesting. And everybody should keep in mind that Fox owns 39% of Sky now.

To fully own Sky, Comcast will need to, at some point, obtain those shares from the entity they're bidding against.

That gives Fox/Disney a lot of leverage.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

What! I thought he was a guy!

It's the internet. Who knows?








but I was just joking

 

[Orba]

Interesting. And everybody should keep in mind that Fox owns 39% of Sky now.

To fully own Sky, Comcast will need to, at some point, obtain those shares from the entity they're bidding against.

That gives Fox/Disney a lot of leverage.

Basically as long as Fox spins off their "News" into a separate company during the sale to Disney (which they are planning on doing) then it would seem that the UK Government will not have any major issues with their bid for Sky. One less hurdle for Disney although until the main Fox purchase is decided Sky will take a back seat. Until it is decided we won't know how much Disney and Comcast are willing to spend, or have left to spend.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Basically as long as Fox spins off their "News" into a separate company during the sale to Disney (which they are planning on doing) then it would seem that the UK Government will not have any major issues with their bid for Sky. One less hurdle for Disney although until the main Fox purchase is decided Sky will take a back seat. Until it is decided we won't know how much Disney and Comcast are willing to spend, or have left to spend.

What makes this so interesting is that one company or the other is likely to have to really extend themselves to get both Fox and Sky. And after a Fox bidding war, chances are the loser will be the only one with enough dry powder left to go after Sky.

 

[BeserkerHilf]

After teasing millions of fans with an MCU reunion, a rebooted Comcast led FF franchise would go into production with approximately eleventy billion strikes against it. The fan outrage over the Ghostbusters reboot would look laughable in comparison. Roberts may very well be a spiteful pr**ck, but investing 9 figures into a franchise that hasn't had a single successful cinematic outing, has massive fan opposition and merchandise rights under the control of his greatest competitor would be a level beyond stupid.

If Kabletown spends $100B (!) of borrowed cash in an era of rising interest rates to one up Iger, I see the company spinning off non-essential assets soon after the deal closes. At least 6 of the RSNS will go on the market, and I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel rights go on the block as well.

It's really difficult to take you seriously if you reduce this down to just Comcast owning more Marvel properties. Fox has a massive Movie and TV catalog that spans the nearly entire life of the industry. The Simpsons alone are worth more than Marvel.

I attended a talk a few weeks ago with a studio head here in Atlanta. While the topic was not about the Fox merger, he did touch on the notion that Walt Disney established the distribution model (sell it to you in theaters, sell it to you for home media...I'm summarizing here) that has carried the industry for decades. That model is under attack with streaming and it's up to the studios to adapt or get left behind for good.

That lines up exactly with what Iger and Murdoch were said to have talked about last summer. Disney is ramping up their streaming service and this will only bolster their offering to consumers.

 

[Marvel united]

I really hope Disney lets Sky go. It might be a necessary sacrifice as to save the main deal with Fox

 

[Big Bang]

UK government clears rival Sky bids

Let the bidding war for Sky commence.

 

[ADollarADay]

So wait. Am I correct in inferring you and other shareholders can vote now... before Comcast has even submitted another bid? If so, that's very interesting. Many will vote and just want to be done with it, and those votes will be locked in before Comcast even has a chance.

Or would a new offer invalidate the original vote? I assume that may depend on the board. And if the board has the ability to not call a new vote, that may mean Comcast has to win a super majority.

For example. Let's say 30% of shareholders simply rubber-stamp the deal before Comcast submits an offer. That means only 70% of total votes would still be outstanding, and Comcast would need to get 73% of those remaining votes just to have a simple majority of all votes. Or convince the board to call a new vote which could also be difficult.

Shareholders can vote now. We can also change our votes until July 9th. Alternatively we can vote in person on the 10th.

The board has the ability to adjourn or postpone the vote if a new offer is made.

 

[Zarex]

It's really difficult to take you seriously if you reduce this down to just Comcast owning more Marvel properties.

It's always a good idea to not take me seriously. I understand that the deal has much more to it than MCU movies. But I am primarily concerned with the Marvel properties in play, and a rights reversion thread on Superhero hype seems like the appropriate forum.

Fox has a massive Movie and TV catalog that spans the nearly entire life of the industry. The Simpsons alone are worth more than Marvel.

Now I'm having difficulty taking YOU seriously!

 

[Docker2.0]

It's really difficult to take you seriously if you reduce this down to just Comcast owning more Marvel properties. Fox has a massive Movie and TV catalog that spans the nearly entire life of the industry. The Simpsons alone are worth more than Marvel.

I attended a talk a few weeks ago with a studio head here in Atlanta. While the topic was not about the Fox merger, he did touch on the notion that Walt Disney established the distribution model (sell it to you in theaters, sell it to you for home media...I'm summarizing here) that has carried the industry for decades. That model is under attack with streaming and it's up to the studios to adapt or get left behind for good.

That lines up exactly with what Iger and Murdoch were said to have talked about last summer. Disney is ramping up their streaming service and this will only bolster their offering to consumers.

Wow. I hope you are really trolling here. Your first words is you can't take someone seriously but look at what you said. Really?

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Shareholders can vote now. We can also change our votes until July 9th. Alternatively we can vote in person on the 10th.

The board has the ability to adjourn or postpone the vote if a new offer is made.

Yeah, but you know how these things go. I suspect a large number of people will simply vote yes and be done with it. They're not going to bother to go back and change their vote later.

That gives 'yes' a built in advantage and leaves it largely in the hands of the board. If the board is generally pro-Disney (as seems to be the case), they could choose to just not have a new vote (particularly since the official vote will come after the Comcast offer(s) and as you point out, the votes can be changed, so they're perfectly justified in sticking to the July 9th vote - which I now feel will have an inherent bias toward the Disney deal).

 

[Tymminator]

It may be unrelated, but I find it interesting that Marvel is going full speed ahead with bring the F4 back to the comics.

It will be revealing if it suddenly paused.

 

[Random490]

The Simpsons alone are worth more than Marvel.

In the 90's, yes. Today not as much. It could be argued that Simpsons is a bigger money maker than X-men and F4 rights (which are the only ones at stake), but I think that's a stretch. But your larger point is still valid, the guys at the top do not care about individual licenses, that is incredibly insignificant in the deal. So when discussing what will happen you have to examine it on that level. With Fox Studios not only are you getting a great resource for future films, but a huge backlog of film and tv rights the combine value most likely exceeds Marvel current value. X-men and F4 rights, are not informing any of these decisions, even though it's the only part of it I personally care about.

It may be unrelated, but I find it interesting that Marvel is going full speed ahead with bring the F4 back to the comics.

It will be revealing if it suddenly paused.

Well depends when Perlmutter found out about the deal, if I remember F4 where announced to return before the Fox deal was made public and I don't think Perlmutter was privy to any of those previous conversations. Perlmutter did something much shrewder with F4. While yes he canceled their series before the movie, but those characters were also front and center during a massive company wide crossover while the film premiered. Then the used the characters to promote other books: Doom in Iron Man, Human Torch in Inhumans, and the Thing in Guardians. I have a feeling them returning a few years later to great fan fair was always the plan. Even if the deal fell through I don't think F4 are in danger until the next F4 film officially goes into production.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Well depends when Perlmutter found out about the deal, if I remember F4 where announced to return before the Fox deal was made public and I don't think Perlmutter was privy to any of those previous conversations. Perlmutter did something much shrewder with F4. While yes he canceled their series before the movie, but those characters were also front and center during a massive company wide crossover while the film premiered. Then the used the characters to promote other books: Doom in Iron Man, Human Torch in Inhumans, and the Thing in Guardians. I have a feeling them returning a few years later to great fan fair was always the plan. Even if the deal fell through I don't think F4 are in danger until the next F4 film officially goes into production.

Yeah, I think they were originally killed partly because Perlmutter didn't want to support Fox, but also because they had become stale ( and that was partly because Fox's awful films had lessened interest in them).

But if nothing had changed and Fox continued to make films, they would have come back to the comics at some point. I think the timing of events is mostly coincidence (thought that coincidence could be great for Marvel and FF fans if the deal goes through).

The return of the FF was clearly being set-up with Marvel-Two-In-One, and that had probably been in the works since at least a year ago or more.

 

[BeserkerHilf]

In the 90's, yes. Today not as much. It could be argued that Simpsons is a bigger money maker than X-men and F4 rights (which are the only ones at stake), but I think that's a stretch. But your larger point is still valid, the guys at the top do not care about individual licenses, that is incredibly insignificant in the deal. So when discussing what will happen you have to examine it on that level. With Fox Studios not only are you getting a great resource for future films, but a huge backlog of film and tv rights the combine value most likely exceeds Marvel current value. X-men and F4 rights, are not informing any of these decisions, even though it's the only part of it I personally care about.

Thank you for seeing my comment in its proper context. I still stand by my point that as a brand with a much smaller cast, lucrative syndication deals, and the multitude of merchandising opportunities, The Simpsons are much more valuable to acquire. Not to mention, Universal Studios Orlando (Comcast) already has its own Springfield park. What do you think that costs to license from Fox?

One point I didn't Google-check when blurting out my point is that an entire season of the Simpsons can cost somewhere between $22-44m. Currently, it has generally brought in north of $13b as a franchise. At the average of that current amount, the show has cost a lifetime total of about $1b to produce episodes.

In the last year (Thor>AM&TW), Marvel's movies have cost at least $800+m. AM&TW budget is still unknown, but even assuming a $100m budget crosses $800m. Once you factor in the production crew and costs, distribution and marketing costs, the theater chains' [dwindling] cuts, and then cast paychecks/royalties, that Marvel movie's Billion Dollar gross gets smaller and smaller.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

In the last year (Thor>AM&TW), Marvel's movies have cost at least $800+m. AM&TW budget is still unknown, but even assuming a $100m budget crosses $800m. Once you factor in the production crew and costs, distribution and marketing costs, the theater chains' [dwindling] cuts, and then cast paychecks/royalties, that Marvel movie's Billion Dollar gross gets smaller and smaller.

Box office revenue is nothing. Toys, T-Shirts, home video distribution, advertising on commercial television airings, increased subscriptions to streaming services etc. etc. etc. That's where the real money is.

Imagine walking into a toy store at the height of Simpons popularity and walking into a toy store now and compare the numbers of Simpson's toys then to Marvel toys now.

There's no reasonable comparison. Sure, Simpsons has had a long run and made a lot of money, but the potential money FF and X-Men could bring in from all sources over a 30 year period would easily dwarf 13 billion.

 

[ADollarADay]

And I received the Disney proxy vote this morning.

 

[Zarex]

A study commissioned back in 2011 by the striking members of the Simpsons voice cast estimated that the franchise would bring in $2.8B in profits to the network through its 23rd year on the air.
http://www.today.com/id/44794519/ns...udy-simpsons-has-made-b-profits/#.Wxfp8FVKiUk

Black Panther and Infinity War will bring in over a third of this total in BO profits alone within half a year's time.
https://deadline.com/2018/03/tomb-raider-black-panther-love-simon-box-office-weekend-1202339172/
https://deadline.com/2018/05/avenge...ice-profit-russo-brothers-success-1202382804/

And that's not including the income Marvel generates from video games, TV live action and animation, licensing to other studios, merchandise, apparel, publishing, etc. The Marvel and Simpsons franchise are in no way comparable in terms of value.

If the Mouse put Marvel on the market they could EASILY garner bids double the $4B they paid back in 2009. And probably get bids approaching $10B.

A fading franchise like the Simpsons may be worth $1B based on its large catalog of television shows. But it ain't Marvel.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Bad News - Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom reviews aren't looking good, and that could put more pressure on Comcast to buy Fox to fill in with other franchises.

Good News - if it doesn't do well at the box office, that will reduce the cash coming in for now and the future and make it more difficult/ill-advised for Comcast to make a big purchase.

 

[Iceman]

Bad News - Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom reviews aren't looking good, and that could put more pressure on Comcast to buy Fox to fill in with other franchises.

Good News - if it doesn't do well at the box office, that will reduce the cash coming in for now and the future and make it more difficult/ill-advised for Comcast to make a big purchase.

I saw it yesterday and it was fine but not really expecting it to be as huge as JW though.

 

[BeserkerHilf]

I saw it yesterday and it was fine but not really expecting it to be as huge as JW though.

Only thing I'm going to say is I don't think anyone even-remotely predicted JW to rival Avengers' opening weekend and it went on the gross $1.6b. Even if it doesn't gross JW numbers, we still have a Fast and Furious sized movie making a ton of money overseas until it premieres a week after Incredible 2 and two weeks before AM&TW.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

The trailer looked really bad to me. It will probably do well just on the name, but I don't think it's a guaranteed perpetual money-maker.

And nothing is. Disney's Marvel characters don't do as well as they do just because they're Marvel characters. Marvel puts a lot of work into them to make them do as well as they do.

My fear is, if Comcast buys Fox, they'll think they've got a golden goose and crank out crappy X-Men and FF films and just expect them to make money.

If I actually thought Comcast was capable of making good FF films, I'd give them a chance, but Marvel is the only studio who has any kind of track record making these films.

 

[Iceman]

Only thing I'm going to say is I don't think anyone even-remotely predicted JW to rival Avengers' opening weekend and it went on the gross $1.6b. Even if it doesn't gross JW numbers, we still have a Fast and Furious sized movie making a ton of money overseas until it premieres a week after Incredible 2 and two weeks before AM&TW.

True but that's also what I'm getting at in reference to Willie's post. Even if it did massive numbers now it wouldn't be much of a surprise. There is a much larger range of returns that wouldn't cause a huge surprise like JW did where veryone was expecting less. I can see it doing well and that still being less well than JW (just personal opinion after seeing it). Hard to predict some of the OS markets though and how crazy they might get about it.

 

[Iceman]

The trailer looked really bad to me. It will probably do well just on the name, but I don't think it's a guaranteed perpetual money-maker.

And nothing is. Disney's Marvel characters don't do as well as they do just because they're Marvel characters. Marvel puts a lot of work into them to make them do as well as they do.

My fear is, if Comcast buys Fox, they'll think they've got a golden goose and crank out crappy X-Men and FF films and just expect them to make money.

If I actually thought Comcast was capable of making good FF films, I'd give them a chance, but Marvel is the only studio who has any kind of track record making these films.

Making good X-Men films in particular isn't all that easy IMO, especially for those who have no background at all with the material. And F4 is in last chance saloon. Marvel are the best bet for both F4 and X-Men IMO and as you say, even that isn't a guarantee of quality. We are just assuming as much given what they've put into their recent films.

 

[Spiderine]

The trailer looked really bad to me. It will probably do well just on the name, but I don't think it's a guaranteed perpetual money-maker.

And nothing is. Disney's Marvel characters don't do as well as they do just because they're Marvel characters. Marvel puts a lot of work into them to make them do as well as they do.

My fear is, if Comcast buys Fox, they'll think they've got a golden goose and crank out crappy X-Men and FF films and just expect them to make money.

If I actually thought Comcast was capable of making good FF films, I'd give them a chance, but Marvel is the only studio who has any kind of track record making these films.

JW almost looks like a rework of the lost world sequel to me.


At this point fans are so excited about a MCU FF possibility I don't think anyone would ever accept a FF made by any other studio at all even if it were decent.