After the Walt Disney Company‘s acquisition of 20th Century Fox was announced, many fans wondered how this would affect popular franchises such as Predator, Alien, and other R-rated films.
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Disney Chairman Bob Iger confirmed during a shareholder’s meeting that 20th Century Fox will continue to operate under the banner of Disney, becoming another content creator for the company that will join other prestigious banners like Pixar, Marvel Studios, and Lucasfilm.
Some speculated that Disney might water down the franchises for PG-13 ratings or possibly even axe them. After all, who can imagine an Alien movie being paired with the Walt Disney Studios fanfare?
Well, you won’t have to because that’s not going to happen. Iger stated that 20th Century Fox, FX, Fox Searchlight, and others will all continue under their own names.
FX content will likely remain on Hulu, and more family-friendly titles have a chance of going on the Disney+ service, but this allows Fox Searchlight to continue churning out quality films from newer filmmakers, and 20th Century Fox will keep putting out its own films โ including R-rated movies.
Of course, 20th Century Fox will lose the the license to make Marvel movies after their current slate hits theaters. Iger already confirmed the X-Men and Fantastic Four would go to Marvel Studios once the acquisition is finalized.
“I think it only makes sense,” Iger told the Hollywood Reporter. “I want to be careful here because of what’s been communicated to the Fox folks, but I think they know. It only makes sense for Marvel to be supervised by one entity. There shouldn’t be two Marvels.”
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige expressed excitement over the prospect of getting not just the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, but the vast library of characters that were bundled in that deal.
“The truth is, I’m excited for all of them. I’m excited, and it’s not just the marquee names you know โ there are hundreds of names on those documents, on those agreements,” Feige said to MTV News. “And the fact that Marvel is as close as we may ever get now to having access to all of the characters, is something I’ve been dreaming about for my almost 20 years at Marvel. And it’s very exciting.”
The deal is expected to finalized sometime this summer.
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