Disney Raises Bid for Fox Properties, but Do We Really Need a Unified Marvel Universe?
In the war for Fox’s chunk of the Marvel comics world, along with their other entertainment assets, Comcast made a surprise bid against Disney’s offer of $65 billion. Not one to be screwed out of a possible monopoly, Disney responded today by raising their bid to $71.3 billion for the Fox assets, according to The New York Times.
Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox and Trump supporter, called the bid “superior” to Comcast’s and went on to say, “We remain convinced that the combination of 21CF’s iconic assets, brands and franchises with Disney’s will create one of the greatest, most innovative companies in the world.”
The X-Men franchise being in the hands of Disney has been a dream of mine for years. I want to see Storm done right, and I’d also love to see the Fantastic Four reinvented in a period piece. The MCU has had a strong vision and a great team that truly loves the comics they are adapting.
That being said, my biggest fear is that having a monopoly on “good” comic book movies will be more of a hindrance than a help with keeping Marvel on their toes. Yes, Warner Bros.’ DCEU is not doing well, with the exception of Wonder Woman, but its very existence will always be a threat. The fact that Warner Bros. got a female superhero film with a female director into theaters before Marvel, and that it did very well, is without a doubt going to be in the back of Marvel execs’ minds with the upcoming Captain Marvel.
Logan and Deadpool both offer R-rated storylines that I’m not totally sure that Marvel would take the risk to do right now. As dark as Infinity War and Black Panther get at times, the absence of blood and the fact that the alien armies are all portrayed as mindless creatures makes the killing seem more like a video game than actual carnage. There needs to be space for both those kinds of comic book movies to exist when it makes sense for the characters we love—and whatever the hell Venom is supposed to be doing.
Plus, Marvel has already created its own world that has ignored the existence of mutants for this long. How would they integrate them into the MCU? I mean, I know Professor X can be a bit of a dick sometimes, but I feel like he would at least help fight Thanos?
Unless Comcast pulls out an even higher bid, it looks very likely that the future is coming up Disney. When that happens, we need to keep a close eye to make sure that they don’t get too comfortable in their dominance over half the nerd-universe.
(via The New York Times, image: Marvel Comics)
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