DC and Marvel aside I don’t believe any of these companies have IP and Franchises that are really worth anything, not when you can look at the top 50 best sellers in each major novel genre and most of those are proven IPs with a ‘Proven Demand’ that are suitable for some form of safe, profitable comercial adaptation whether that is Film, TV or Games.
Take for instance Star Wars Battlefront, we all know that could have been Battlefront anything it would have sold, Game of Thrones is good, but Amazon just secured Lord of The Rings, somewhat different but a quality IP. Want Game of thrones Dune is Game of Thrones in Space. From the main 4 Atreides books there is at least 6-8 solid seasons, then there is what happened before the Atreides story-line and after the Atreides story-line, there are the non Frank Herbert novels, and there are plenty of spin-off opportunities, the franchise could be as big as GOT.
"Humanity stretches out amongst 25 Million planets, the Galactic Empire has ruled for 12,000 years, the Empire Exists in peace and prosperity and the origin of Mankind has become lost over the years. The capital is Trantor, a planet covered by a single city so vast that it’s residesnt rarely see the sun.
Harry Seldon a Scientist has inveted a field of Psychology known as Psychohistory uses mathematics to predict the future based on known variables, he predicts the Galactic Empire will fall following a Dark Age of 30,000 years before a New Empire emerges, the collapse can not be stopped, only shortened. Seldon implements a series of events to reduce the 30,000 year dark age to a mere ‘1,000’ years…"
Terry Pratchets discworld, 40 books, 80 million sales, easily One to Two decades of adaptable content, then there is opportunity for original content and spin-offs in the same universe. Point is there is a huge stockpile of great content sitting on the shelves waiting for an adaptation, then we have original content, things like ‘The Good Place’ or ‘The Detour’ we have adaptation opportunities from the real world, the original GoT, the Roman Empire and Feudal Medieval Europe and all the bland generic sitcoms and trash tv…
You know, you don’t need to borrow 40bn, 80bn, 200bn to buy someone like disney or 21st century fox to make or put-out good content, heck all the money in hollywood has not helped in terms of the slow-motion train-wreck that is Star Wars…
I have even read that after these companies have done their proposed mergering they will be the most indebted companies in the world, I think thats good, I think they are going to have trouble servicing that debt. AT&T will have 1/3tn dollars of debt! They better hope rates don’t rise! Every half a percent is 1.75Bn dollars!
And I think they will view it like you do, that somehow by merging and shuffling around their business and distribution practices that they can continue to make more money remaking the same movies and putting out that garbage they call entertainment between their adverts. But with their outdated way of thinking I don’t think they will be around in two or three decades time.
