It’s looking as though the Disney/Fox merger will soon be complete. Though the two companies have long agreed on a price and what would happen with the Fox IPs, the deal still needed to meet regulatory approval by core territories they operate in. One by one they approved though, with caveats that Disney divests themselves of various local channels in order to prevent a monopoly. The last two hold-outs were in Brazil and Mexico, and according to Bloomberg, both have now given the go-ahead to the merger.
Most of the hold-up seems to revolve around Disney’s control of sports channels, with both Brazil and Mexico fearing that if Disney controls Fox Sports and various other regional sports networks under Fox’s control, they’d have an undue amount of influence in the country. But Disney has now agreed to sell off these channels in order for this long-running saga to finally reach a conclusion. This means that analysts are predicting the merger could be complete by March.
But I know you don’t come here to read about the particularities of the corporate world, so let’s get into what this news could mean for the MCU. With Avengers: Endgame set to wrap up more than a decade of storytelling and potentially see the final appearances from the some of the most iconic characters in the MCU, Disney will be hungry for new heroes and new plotlines. I can guarantee that they’re currently brainstorming the best way to get mutants in the MCU and wouldn’t be surprised if they already had a couple of top secret spec scripts in development (my bet is that Galactus will be the next threat they build towards).
If the deal’s concluded by the end of March, that means there’s also an outside chance that if there’s a scene after the credits in Endgame, it could be a very vague teaser that mutants are coming. I’m not expecting to see a full line-up of actors, but even the sight of some claws and that familiar *snikt* sound would drive everyone absolutely insane.