An In-Depth Look at Some of the Properties Acquired by Disney in Yesterday’s Fox Deal

So yesterday's news of the Disney/Fox merger opens up a Pandora's box of pop culture possibilities. I teased two of them yesterday, but let's take a look at some of the other properties coming to the Mouse House as a part of this deal. Spoiler Alert, they're not all family friendly. In fact, the majority of them aren't. 

First up is Deadpool, who has always been a lightning rod for controversy. Well, the character's creator thinks that Disney is business savvy enough to know how to handle his potty mouthed creation...

"[Disney CEO] Bob Iger didn’t deliver this unprecedented level of historic success for Disney by accident. This man gets it. He understands the culture and more importantly he understands the concerns of the fans. Addressing the Deadpool issue right out of the gate gets high marks and in all honesty, why would they mess with the success that Ryan Reynolds has achieved as Deadpool? The next person I encounter that tells me they want a neutered version of Ryan’s Deadpool will be the first person to express that to me. So smart of Iger to lay that foundation of trust and I for one am so appreciative. It definitely alleviated a concerned Deadpool base."

So those fears should hopefully be assuaged a bit by those comments. On to two more equally family un-friendly properties swept up in this deal, Aliens and Predators.

These franchises are both part of the deal, so we could theoretically get Wolverine vs Predator, but we could've gotten that movie already. Something tells me these two won't crossover much into the other properties in the way the X-Men and Fantastic Four will. It does make me wonder about the future of Aliens in particular, as Ridley Scott is operating under the delusion that there's yet another Alien prequel to be made. 

So yeah, who knows? Two rather interesting live action properties joining Disney are Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Planet of the Apes.

These both have fascinating potential for animated ventures, especially Apes. As someone who grew up on the old Planet of the Apes animated series, I would love to see something like that now. Add in Buffy's comics adventures, and the fact that it would be much more palatable to bring these characters back close to their age on the show and have the actors do the voices instead. That's a great idea. 

Also in the mix is Avatar. Meh. I could care less about this as it's not a franchise yet. Wake me up when those sequels come out. 

The animation end of things is what really intrigues me here. This will bring Blue Sky Animation, home of Ice Age, Rio, and Ferdinand to name a few, under Disney's umbrella. I hope this means a step up in quality of product as well, though I will admit The Peanuts Movie was immensely charming and wonderful.

Then you have the two titans of prime time animation, The Simpsons and Family Guy—Bob's Burgers is curiously staying at Fox—which are going to Disney. I don't know what that means for the future of the shows, and if Disney is going to ride that Simpsons cash cow past the upcoming 30th season. 

One thing is for certain, though. This will bolster Disney's upcoming streaming service that's launching in 2019 to compete with Netflix. If they take all of this content with them to that service, I think Netflix might finally have met its match. Stay tuned!