In a story that rocked the media world, Disney held talks with Fox to acquire a number of key assets, including 21st Century Fox Studios, Sky and Star, FX Networks, and National Geographic, CNBC is reporting.  Fox would keep its news and sports operations, broadcast network, and TV stations. 

A Disney-Fox deal as outlined would give Disney additional content for its upcoming over-the-top network, which is going to move a lot of geek content off Netflix and onto Disney’s proprietary direct-to-consumer service (see “Disney Drops the Other Shoe on Netflix”). 

Most important for the business of geek culture, a Disney-Fox deal  would give Marvel even more control over its comic-based movies and TV shows, bringing the Fox X-Men movies (including Deadpool, Logan, New Mutants, etc., see “Six Marvel Films for 20th Century Fox”) into the fold, and potentially into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The same is true of the currently (sadly) inactive Fantastic Four franchise.  It could also give Marvel control over Fox’s X-Men TV shows, current and planned, which includes the recently launched The Gifted (see “’The Gifted’ Comic-Con Trailer”). 

Depending on how the assets were grouped, a Disney-Fox deal could also give Disney part ownership of BOOM! Studios, through Fox’s recent investment in the company (see “Twentieth Century Fox Buys into BOOM! Studios”).

Talks have apparently paused, but given the scale of the potential impacts on the geek culture business, it’s definitely something we’ll continue to follow.