Showing posts with label Disney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disney. Show all posts

X-Men and the MCU - Commentary

Posted by Jeff Labels: , , , ,

Fox's second to the last X-Men film is about to hit theaters and Disney is about to get stuck between a Rock and Hard place with a decision it has to make concerning the X-Men films.   

Dark Phoenix was not expected to be very good and thanks to throwing money at the film it became a lot more expensive than it was originally planned.    Many expected the film to end the X-Men universe from Fox with a whimper.

The film is currently sitting at a 25% on rottentomatoes.com, it is not very good. I hear you all saying it.   Read the reviews.   Many reviewers were simply looking for a comic book movie to take out their displeasure with comic book movies on.   They didn't dare attack the MCU and the DCEU and Hellboy aren't big enough targets.  The reviewers who actually like comic books or comic book films actually liked or at least didn't dislike the film.  Based upon Metacritic.com the average score for those that liked the film, the top 55% was ~65 out of 100.   The bottom 44% is ~28 out of 100.  That's a wide gulf of difference of opinion.    In looking at the critic scores not put into metacritic yet I think there is a good possibility the gulf grows.

Dark Phoenix is not a good movie, but it isn't a bad movie and nowhere near as bad as it rottentomatoes.com score either.   The real score will be better measured by cinemascore or other similar metric.  Do the people that see the movie like the movie?    Does Dark Phoenix get positive word of mouth?

This is where Disney and Marvel Studios run into their conundrum.    Dark Phoenix was expected to lose money, lots of it.  Giving Disney the easy answer in ending the X-Men Universe.    Problem is it might end up making money and end up in the black.   As one analyst suggested it is not improbable that the film makes $50 to $100 Million in profit.

How does it get into the black?
$150 domestic and $450 overseas or $125 domestic and $525 foreign earns $300 in revenues on a $200 Million dollar film (plus marketing).   That's about $50 in the black.  

This isn't the first time that the X-Men were on the chopping block. 

So what happens if Dark Phoenix ends in the black with a solid cinemascore from fans?

Well it is complicated.

The answer may lie with a few statements made by past directors of the X-Men franchise not named Bryan Singer.   Simon Kinberg recently spoke about how professional and organized Marvel Studios are in comparison to 20th Century Fox.    How things like schedules and budgets and special effects and oversight are better with Marvel Studios.  Gavin Hood, Brett Ratner, and Matthew Vaughn have been critical to the lack of support and changes made, often without their knowledge, by 20th Century Fox.   James Mangold hasn't openly criticized 20th Century Fox, but he suggested that The Wolverine was held back by some 20th Century Fox issues.                 

When Disney finally decides to do something with the X-Men they have three very different options to choose from.

1) A Hard reboot and Merge with the Marvel Cinematic Universe
2) A Soft Reboot and a Merge with the Marvel Cinematic Universe
3) A Soft Reboot and a separate X-Men Universe.  

Most fans are in favor of option 1.   It is all over the fan pages and forums.   And before I saw Dark Phoenix I was in that spot.

Option 3 has been pitched to Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, but he has publicly stated that Disney will be happy to put X-Men under Marvel Studios.

Option 2 seemed ridiculous two days-ago.   If Marvel Studios will be the production company, than a Hard Reboot, cut from 20th Century Fox X-Men seemed all but assured.


At the moment I think Option 1 is still the most likely solution, but neither Option 2 nor Option 3 should be removed completely from the table, yet.
The bigger the box office the more likely they movie down the list.   If Dark Phoenix post $50 to $100 Million in profit option 2 becomes a stronger choice and if for some reason the movie brings in $200 Million plus in profit (Talking about a $750 world wide take) option 3 comes into play.

Me personally I think option 2 is the good choice, but there is no best choice.  

Bob Iger what are you going to do?

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Disney - Comcast come to an agreement on Hulu

Posted by Jeff Labels: , , , ,

Effective immediately Disney will take full control of streaming service Hulu.

The deal allows Comcast (NBC/Universal) content licensing to lapse in three years, allows comcast to move forward with its own Streaming Service and has an option to sell its share of Hulu to Disney for at least $27.5 Billion dollars.

The control of Hulu allows Disney to move its "less family friendly" oriented content to hulu while leaving Disney+ as a more family oriented streaming service.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/comcast-has-agreed-to-sell-its-stake-in-hulu-in-5-years.html

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Does the success of Avengers: Endgame change the dynamic with Sony and Universal

Posted by Jeff Labels: , , , ,

The short answer is no, or rather not at the moment.

The long answer is complicated.

Sony Corporation looked at selling all or parts of Sony Entertainment for the better part of 18 months, when it became apparent that there were no viable buyers willing to spend what Sony considered an appropriate amount of money for any segment of the business it decided to move on.  
As an aside a little birdie tells me there is still an interested party, but not for the entirety of Sony Picture Entertainment, but with no one willing to step up for the other segments of the business its looking like a non-starter.
Recently activist investor Dan Loeb, with the backing of his hedge fund, has been purchasing stock in Sony Corporation; the parent company to Sony Entertainment.    Dan Loeb is vocal in his plan to divest (sell/spin off) aspects of Sony Corporation to increase shareholder value.   As of April 20th his hedge fund was the largest single shareholder of Sony Corporation at 6%.   Dan Loeb's plan calls for selling Sony Entertainment or spin it off as a new corporation separate from Sony, using the sale of the company (and or stock) to further fund the electronics segment of Sony Corporation.  

Sony Entertainment is made of four distinct subsidiaries, Sony Pictures, Sony Television, Sony Music, and Sony Music Publishing.  There is clearly not a buyer for the Sony Entertainment as a whole, but could Two or three of the subsidiaries be sold and the fourth spun off?

The other aspect of activist investors it puts increased pressure on the individual parts to be profitable, an asset rather than a liability as a whole.   In calendar year 2019 Sony Pictures and Sony Television were profitable, I am not sure about the music side of the house.   There is now pressure on those units to continue to be profitable, they cannot revert back into being a liability.    

Here is a date to remember, Jun 18th 2019, Sony's next general stockholders meeting and vote to confirm the new board of directors, Dan Loeb is not currently a member.    During general stockholder's meetings is when activist investors push their strategy.   If Dan Loeb has enough support that when it will take place.


As indicated in Calendar year 2017 and 2018 Sony Pictures was profitable, even with a number of sub par box office performances, leading the way was Jumanji, Peter Rabbit, Hotel Transylvania 3, The Equalizer 2, as well as the Marvel Titles of Spider-Man Homecoming, Venom, and Into the Spider-verse.   For Sony the problem with the Marvel titles is their profitability in comparison to their cost.   Does Sony invest $200 Million (spread out over 24 months) to make $50 million in net profit in return?   

As I have indicated previously Sony has put all their chips on the table and is waiting for anyone, well at least Marvel Studios (Disney) to do something.   

Avengers: Endgame was the conclusion of Phase 3 (The Infinity Stones) storyline of Marvel Studios, while we have some idea of what comes next (cough Secret Invasion cough probably maybe).   We also know that Avengers: Endgame will be extremely profitable, as it generated 550 million in revenue for Marvel Studios on $500 million dollar total budget in its first seven days of release.   It's likely the film will generate another $500 million dollars profit for Marvel Studios.   

In the end I believe the success of Avengers: Endgame puts more pressure on Sony to act.  Financially I know the bean counters at Sony would tell you it's better to pull out of the deal (not renegotiate) the deal with Marvel Studios but it would be a PR nightmare, potentially sinking one or two movie before recovering.   Is Sony ready for that PR nightmare?

I would not be shocked to hear more rumors that Sony and Marvel are discussing a sale of the Marvel Properties (including Men in Black) during mid to late summer as Dan Loeb's supporters become more agitated.   However until Dan Loeb or another activist investor gets enough shareholder support a sale is not going to happen.

My view is Sony will begrudgingly agree to a new crossover deal with Marvel and Marvel will get more creative control of the live action Spider-Man universe allowing all of the Sony Spider-Man universe characters to be in the shared MCU universe.


Universal Pictures
Universal still has the rights to release movies with the Incredible Hulk and Namor.   Hasn't changed as their agreement doesn't have similar clauses requiring Movies be in active production.   
Universal Pictures is owned by NBCUniversal which is owned by Comcast.   To put it bluntly the CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts and the CEO of Disney, Dave Iger, don't like each other and have actively competed against one another on numerous fronts over the past decade.

In 2019 Disney sold Comcast their share of Sky Network and NBCUniversal is working with Disney to sell NBCUniversal share of HULU streaming service to Disney.   That is something that a year ago I would not believe to have been possible.    It's like a earthquake along the coast of Africa that everyone has been waiting for.

I am guessing their is an expanded agreement in place allowing the use of not only Hulk and the associated characters in his IP to be used by Disney, but a further agreement for Namor to be used as well.    The real question is Disney writing NBCUniversal a check to take the rights back or is it just an expanded use agreement?

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