Movie Theaters Were Already in Trouble. With Disney’s Fox Deal, It’s Double
Star Wars fans raise their lightsabers before the start of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, on Dec. 15, 2017.
Photographer: Sadiq Asyraf/AP PHOTOAmerica’s movie theaters were jammed in December for the screening of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a story about the Resistance battling the evil First Order. But with the announcement in December that Walt Disney Co. will acquire much of 21st Century Fox Inc.’s entertainment businesses, theater owners may feel like they’re the Resistance.
Disney’s acquisition of Fox’s film studio will unite some of the most lucrative movie franchises, from Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel series to Fox’s X-Men and Avatar. With control of more blockbusters, not only does Disney gain more leverage over theater chains such as AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and Carmike Cinemas Inc., it also wins more films it could distribute exclusively on its upcoming online service—cutting out cinema operators entirely. “Disney is becoming the Wal-Mart of Hollywood: huge and dominant,” says Barton Crockett, a media analyst at B. Riley FBR. “That’s going to have a big influence up and down the supply chain.”