Report: Fox takeover was not a good deal for Disney

When Disney bought 21st Century Fox, or just Fox, almost four years ago, the deal was worth a whopping $71.3 billion. By comparison, Microsoft paid "just" over 10% as much for Bethesda ($7.5 billion) and Microsoft's forthcoming, huge takeover of Activision Blizzard is predicted to land just under $69 billion.

This of course carries enormous risk, and a new report (thanks, The Wrap) now shows that Covid-19, among other things, has made it much harder for Disney to recoup the money for the takeover. At present, Disney is estimated to have earned just under 37% ($26 billion) of the total, leaving $45 billion behind. This is thought to be because one of Disney's main reasons for buying Fox was to strengthen its brand with adult movie-going audiences, including the new Planet of the Apes films. However, the problems started to mount with Corona and the fact that the high-spending, adult audience then turned away from the cinema and chose streaming services for movie viewing.

While Avatar: The Way of the Water has grossed more than $2 billion on its own, it represents only 4.5 percent of the $45 billion total. Analysts predict that Disney will therefore focus more on blockbusters from now on - probably at the expense of smaller brands. On that horizon, we have films like Avatar 3, 4 and 5, Taika Waititi's Next Goal Wins and Gareth Edwards' (Rogue One) True Love to look forward to, among others.