Disney finally buys all the good bits of 21st Century Fox

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Disney finally owns all the non-news parts of 21st Century Fox (I’d say all the entertainment parts, but Fox News and Sports are still owned by the Murdochs). The $71.3 billion deal finally passed the final regulatory hurdles, giving Disney a huge catalog of content for its upcoming Disney+ streaming service.

That means that Disney now controls 20th Century Fox Film and Television studios, the FX group of networks, National Geographic, and all of the Fox-related cable and international TV businesses. The buy-out of Fox’s assets also makes Disney the majority owner of Hulu, with 60-percent. The Mouse House is reportedly trying to buy WarnerMedia’s 10-percent stake in Hulu as well, promising to leave well enough alone and keep Hulu as-is while the Mouseketeers build up its own Disney+ service.

Think of all the crossover possibilities

I can’t wait for the inevitable crossovers, like National Geographic special reports from planets in the Star Wars universe, or turning Deadpool into a Disney Princess. I mean, that’s what I’d do if I was in charge. It’ll be interesting to see how much of 20th Century Fox gets hosted on the Disney+ service, as chunks of the incoming content library definitely aren’t suitable for kids to watch. Maybe Disney will put all of the questionable content on Hulu, making both streaming services complimentary to one another.

This treasure trove of content, new and old, might just be enough to sway eyes away from Netflix. With all Star Wars content living on Disney+, along with all Marvel movies, which will be exclusive to Disney’s service starting with Captain Marvel, that combination is hard to ignore. Add to this all the new content Disney has planned, from a Mighty Ducks tv show to new tv shows based on Marvel characters, to sequels of huge movies from the 90’s such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Parent Trap and Three Men and a Baby, and the future of Disney+ looks pretty darn good.

They’ll have to figure out how to shoehorn Fox’s properties such as X-Men, Family Guy, and Futurama into the mix. Probably by putting it all on Hulu, where a bunch of X-Men related content already lives.

Now, if they could only get Spiderman away from Sony…

What do you think? Are you excited about what Disney could do with some of these properties? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.