Comment by divbzero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by divbzero | Hacker News Reader

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The acquisition of Fox assets dwarfs Disney’s previous acquisitions of content:

  2019  $71.3 B for 21st Century Fox
  2012   $4.1 B for Lucasfilm
  2009   $4.2 B for Marvel
  2006   $6.3 B for Pixar

As well as Disney’s other billion dollar acquisitions:

  2016   $2.9 B for BAMTech
  2001   $2.9 B for Fox Family
  1999   $1.8 B for Infoseek
  1996  $19.0 B for Capital Cities/ABC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Disney

Bob Iger must have been eager to bulk up before the launch of Disney+?

Which is understandable. 21st Century Fox was a much larger company than any of the other three mentioned companies - with sales offices, distribution deals with other studios, physical movie studios, large television production units (especially that output content in the UK/AU).

21st Century Fox also owned the rights to hundreds of movies (Avatar, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Dr. Seuss) and plenty of television (1/3 of Hulu, The Simpsons).

They also had the movie rights to some of the Marvel characters. I don't know how much that was worth to Igor, but it seems that he really wants to get the family all back under one roof.

It's interesting that you mention the ABC acquisition - in today's money that would cost $36.09 billion - just roughly half of the Fox acquisition.

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