This is big news. Disney may buy most of Fox studios (currently the 4th biggest Hollywood film studio) which has been around since the early 1930s, when Fox and 20th Century merged.

It would not own FOX news or Fox TV.

That means Disney may soon own the X-Men films, Deadpool, Fantastic Four, The Simpsons, and many other things.

http://www.businessinsider.com...ll-to-disney-2017-11

And that Marvel Cinematic Universe gets X-Men, Deadpool and Fantastic Four to play with.

And that Ike might lift his ban on FF comics.

It would probably be in FOX's best financial interests to sell. Looking at the charts for 2017, they've not had a great year, unlike other studios.

Of the Top 20 films of 2017, so far their hits have been (in terms of ranking) LOGAN (# 7), THE BOSS BABY (#12) and WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (#17). Nothing else in the Top 20.

And with Star Wars and Justice League coming, along with other holiday films, I'm sure APES will be knocked out of the Top 20 soon

Looking at FOX's upcoming releases, they have MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS with Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer this weekend.

And in 2018, yet another PREDATOR film, and NEW MUTANTS, DARK PHOENIX, and DEADPOOL 2, so alot more X-Men films coming

Murder on the Orient Express has been done so many times, is their anyone who doesn't know the "surprise" ending? Moreover this new all star cast is not nearly as star filled as the last one with Albert Finney. And Johnny Depp is one of those new stars, so that's a curse if ever I saw one. .

Daddy's Home 2 will get an audience, maybe, but the first one was only good for half the movie and then it got totally lame. This could go something like Zoolander 2 and start in the lame spot and just go downhill from there. Will Ferrel seems to be another comedian who has worn out his welcome with the same material.

I think Thor Ragnarok will hold them both off and stay #1, maybe by a wide margin.

Oh, and Disney is taking over the world, so soon there will be no competition.

Looks like it could very well happen in the days ahead. Disney would get the X-Men back, and the Simpsons.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news...murdoch-disney-stake

$52.4bn ? That's only £39bn in British money.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42353545

So now the X-Men and Avengers can appear together in movies.

I read an article that suggests that Disney may now cancel the Simpsons (it is currently renewed through 2019, I believe) as it supposedly doesn't make much money anymore, and Disney could care less about a 1/2 hour Sunday night TV show.

Talking about The Simpsons, I was looking at an on line source of the ratings since the show began in 1989-1990.

The highest rated year (in terms of numbers of people watching) was the very FIRST year when it averaged almost 28 million viewers

The lowest year was 2015-16 when it had a mere 4 million viewers a week, on average

4 million is about HALF of what it was in 2007-2008, and about 25 % of what it was in 1998 and only 14 % of what it was back in 1990 ! How does this show stay on ?

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
4 million is about HALF of what it was in 2007-2008, and about 25 % of what it was in 1998 and only 14 % of what it was back in 1990 ! How does this show stay on ?

Well its on FOX, Sunday night is slow and its time slot competition is the pre-game for Sunday Night Football. FOX probably wouldn't get any bigger ratings with a different show and they don't have to even promote the Simpsons because you are either still watching or you're not.

I think you could ask the same question about Family Guy. I know I have.

Ratings for all shows are lower than they were 10, even 5, years ago. People have a lot more stuff to do these days. As for Family Guy and the Simpsons, they still do well in syndication, so the more episodes that are made, the more of those re-run packages they can sell.

Yes, I guess that's the answer. FOX has nothing else to put on to replace it. Remember how many years COPS was on FOX on Sat night ?

Speaking about Simpsons, I read something else that said that only the first 17 years of the show have been released on DVD, and they also released Season 20 on DVD back in 2010.

However, Season 18 was only released on DVD in 2017, and Season 19 is not on DVD, even though Season 20 is.

And none of the past 8 seasons are on DVD. Is that odd, or perhaps a sign of the times ?

The season airing now is Season 29

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tommy C:
And none of the past 8 seasons are on DVD. Is that odd, or perhaps a sign of the times ?/QUOTE]

Sign of things to come. Streaming is being shoved down our throats and while many may be perfectly fine with that, they are trying to do away with the options for those that are content to watch free TV and buy DVDs.

As a future consumer, you are not supposed to actually own anything, just rent it. When the subscription or contract is broken, everything goes back to the company. You are always paying for the service, not the product. As someone with a collector mentality, the idea of not owning the item is against my grain, but that is progress.

As to your other point, there are many movies and TV shows that are not on DVD now and will probably never come out. Some are old and didn't make the cut in the video conversion to DVD stage, so they are on VHS but not DVD. Others were partially released, but dropped in midstream. Some old titles went to public domain and are free game.

Some new series were too short lived to get any attention, even though people want them. Human Target is a great example. Season 1 was released on DVD. The final Season 2 was never released, even though it was better than Season 1 and many fans are still looking for it.

Some TV series are on Amazon and other cable networks that refuse to do anything but streaming subscriptions. As an example, Bosch is a good show on Amazon, in its 4th season, and not one has been released on DVD.

So yeah, sign of the times indeed.

I have some relatives who are fans of the "Degrassi The Next Generation", the Canadian teen show which has run since 2001, the sequel to the well loved 1980s show

The "Next Generation" ran for 14 seasons, but only the first 12 are on DVD, the last one being released in 2013

And the producers announced that Seasons 13 and 14 will NOT be released on DVD, so that has angered the fans

And after Season 14, they re-titled the show Degrassi: Next Class, which has now had 4 years so far, and none of those are on DVD either

Another controversy, is when they release seasons of TV shows on DVD, and many episodes are missing from the disks !

I couldn't believe it when I read that the TV show "In the Heat of the Night", with Carroll O'Connor, which ran from 1988 to 1995, is on DVD, but literally about 26 of the 145 or so episodes are not included on the DVDs, released by season. Apparently alot have music clearance issues, so they just didn't put them on there. Who wants that ?

Same thing with the late 1980s TV show "Wiseguy" with Ken Wahl. DVDs are missing many episodes.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Another controversy, is when they release seasons of TV shows on DVD, and many episodes are missing from the disks !

I couldn't believe it when I read that the TV show "In the Heat of the Night", with Carroll O'Connor, which ran from 1988 to 1995, is on DVD, but literally about 26 of the 145 or so episodes are not included on the DVDs, released by season. Apparently alot have music clearance issues, so they just didn't put them on there. Who wants that ?

Same thing with the late 1980s TV show "Wiseguy" with Ken Wahl. DVDs are missing many episodes.

If you want controversies, how about the classic one of where old episodes of some series no longer exist to be issued on DVD or any other format ? Here in the UK, the BBC famously deleted or otherwise destroyed episodes of some classic TV series from the 60s and 70s as they did not have room to store them or needed to reuse the expensive video tape they were recorded on or just plain did not see any reason to keep programmes that were never going to be shown again. The most famous of these being early episodes of Doctor Who featuring William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton along with some colour episodes from the start of Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor but also included the likes of 'Not Only...But Also' a classic comedy series featuring the comedy talents of the late Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore. ITV also disposed of shows but that hasn't received as much publicity. So some material cannot get onto DVD these days because it no longer exists

With regard to "In the Heat of the Night", you can watch all 145 episodes on TV and DVR them for your collection, I guess. I know that the show runs every weekend on Antenna TV, an "oldies" channel that they show here in the New York area.

But you just can't get all 145 on DVD, just around 119 or so. Why would you want to buy these DVDs if you're missing so many episodes ? Maybe people who are not die hard fans don't care.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
So now the X-Men and Avengers can appear together in movies...

It seems to have been confirmed that this is the case . I hope they don't mix them together.

Now they're saying that Comcast may buy 20th Century Fox instead of Disney

So Disney may NOT get the X-Men, Deadpool and Fantastic Four

I can understand fans concerns, like they had with Disney acquiring Lucas Films/ Star Wars franchise.

But people thought Pixar was done when Disney bought out them but the quality of product is still the same.

Honestly when it's entertainment so long as it's quality and affordable this doesn't have many drawbacks for the consumers.