Do you think Disney will one day buy DC?

[Osiris-Rex]

I read last summer that AT&T was considering selling off DC. Which seemed incredible to me, but stranger things have happened.

Is this the same source that keeps insisting the Batwoman TV show is going to be cancelled due to poor ratings?

[iron chimp]

Marvel nearly bought DC in the 80s.
By the 90s marvel was subcontracting its books to Image
Then Marvel went bust while DC starting making huge money with Batman films.

Anything can happen...

[Digifiend]

And to be honest, what would Disney even do with DC? They have enough Superhero properties to manage.

They'd probably do that Secret Crisis event Doomsday Clock teased, lol. Merging Earth-616 and Prime Earth into a new combined Marvel Universe.

DC as a brand would cease to exist, but the characters would survive... though both sides would likely make sacrifices, for example Namor would have to go, because he and Aquaman can't co-exist, considering they're both the King of Atlantis - and having had a movie, Arthur's definitely the better known character, despite the fact Namor is older (in fact, Namor is Marvel's oldest character).

You'd probably start seeing Justice League and Avengers members trading places. Since the Squadron Supreme are expies of the League, I think that's another franchise that would be gone for good. I can see them playing up the A in JLA, and making them more localised - causing Clark and Diana to be more likely to run with the Avengers, with Captain America going the other way.

The Young Justice, Titans, and Champions teams would likely also mix up, with Champions (and Marvel's other teen team brands, New Warriors and Young Avengers) possibly falling by the wayside as there's no denying that DC's teams, who have both had TV shows, are more successful.

Certain metas with weak origins would end up being declared mutants. New Teen Titans actually refers to Jericho as one, and I can see Beast Boy's origin (which was that a drug used to cure a disease somehow also gave him his powers as a side effect) being changed to the cure simply triggering a mutation too. After all, he's originally from the Doom Patrol - who are very similar to the X-Men and coincidentally debuted at the same time. I'm actually struggling to think of DC properties that would bite the dust...

It's all theoretical anyhow, as like I said originally, I don't see AT&T selling DC.

[Rise]

Batman is too profitable for any sane company to let him go. So, I don't see AT&T selling DC.

[Frontier]

I'm not worried about it at all. Tons of reasons that it'll never happen, from anti-trust laws to these IP's being profitable enough to keep.

And if it did happen I'm not sure if things would really change all that much. The big names are big enough to not be buried in limbo, so Clark and Bruce and Diana will still get books to play in, and odds are at least most of the other big names would too. No point in buying DC if you're not gonna use the IP's, this isn't Malibu Comics. The lesser knowns would only show up when a writer wanted to use them. Just like now. So not much changes. The quality isn't going to be much different since these two companies (as far as comic quality is concerned) are basically clones of each other.

The movies would get better. I'd gripe and moan and bitch about monopolies but I'd still buy a ticket to a Marvel Studios' Superman.

We assume the movies would be better because we assume Kevin Feige would be running them, but I think all the issues with the Star Wars franchise shows that Disney isn't perfect when it comes to handling major franchises.

The cartoons and animations could arguably get worse.

They'd probably do that Secret Crisis event Doomsday Clock teased, lol. Merging Earth-616 and Prime Earth into a new combined Marvel Universe.

DC as a brand would cease to exist, but the characters would survive... though both sides would likely make sacrifices, for example Namor would have to go, because he and Aquaman can't co-exist, considering they're both the King of Atlantis - and having had a movie, Arthur's definitely the better known character, despite the fact Namor is older (in fact, Namor is Marvel's oldest character).

You'd probably start seeing Justice League and Avengers members trading places. Since the Squadron Supreme are expies of the League, I think that's another franchise that would be gone for good. I can see them playing up the A in JLA, and making them more localised - causing Clark and Diana to be more likely to run with the Avengers, with Captain America going the other way.

The Young Justice, Titans, and Champions teams would likely also mix up, with Champions (and Marvel's other teen team brands, New Warriors and Young Avengers) possibly falling by the wayside as there's no denying that DC's teams, who have both had TV shows, are more successful.

Certain metas with weak origins would end up being declared mutants. New Teen Titans actually refers to Jericho as one, and I can see Beast Boy's origin (which was that a drug used to cure a disease somehow also gave him his powers as a side effect) being changed to the cure simply triggering a mutation too. After all, he's originally from the Doom Patrol - who are very similar to the X-Men and coincidentally debuted at the same time. I'm actually struggling to think of DC properties that would bite the dust...

It's all theoretical anyhow, as like I said originally, I don't see AT&T selling DC.

Yeah, that's too many characters for one company to manage in my opinion.

[RachelGrey]

I think that they might be opposed in trying to merge the companies, someone might contest the merger on the basis that it would be an antitrust issue!

[RachelGrey]

No, because DC is owned by Time Warner who is owned by AT&T and tech giants are far more powerful than Disney, but for some reason people don't realize this.

If Steve Jobs hadn't passed away Disney would've been purchased by Apple. Iger himself said this a while ago. That means Marvel would've been owned by Apple, and there's now talks of Apple making another move in 2020 similar to this.

Although I personlly think if Apple ever did make a purchase, it'd be into streaming or something related to that.

Honestly that would be worse. Apple would make all DC products Apple device only in the digital and streaming markets which could actually go a long way into killing the DC brand entirely, excluding the entire Android, Android TV, Roku, and Windows PC market globally!

[Digifiend]

I think that they might be opposed in trying to merge the companies, someone might contest the merger on the basis that it would be an antitrust issue!

Marvel vs DC isn't, because they're just treated as magazines. That's the reason why Diamond is allowed it's monopoly, they're considered to be a competitor to other magazine distributors, despite that they sell a completely different set of periodicals to a completely different set of retailers!

Disney owning Warner when they already own 20th Century Fox would definitely be an issue though.

[9th.]

That sounds illegal

[Tenzel Kim]

Marvel nearly bought DC in the 80s.

Not quite. Marvel nearly licensed DC's characters for publishing. DC would still retain the licensing rights to other media as well as merchandising rights. See Jim Shooter's blog for more on this, but it was not a case of Marvel nearly buying DC.

http://jimshooter.com/2011/08/superm...el-issue.html/

[iron chimp]

Not quite. Marvel nearly licensed DC's characters for publishing. DC would still retain the licensing rights to other media as well as merchandising rights. See Jim Shooter's blog for more on this, but it was not a case of Marvel nearly buying DC.

http://jimshooter.com/2011/08/superm...el-issue.html/

Quite right. I always forget that.

[Sandy Hausler]

There is something called anti-trust law, but we're living in the reign of Trump, so anything's possible!

[Godlike13]

Nevermind.

[Pinsir]

You do know this "Disney is a monopoly!" thing is a meme, right? If you genuinely think Disney is going to monopolize the entertainment industry you just don't understand the breadth of the amount of media out there.

SOBs had 80% of the box office in 2019, according to a headline I glimpsed the other day. They're pretty close to a monopoly already.

But you're probably right all the same.

Except that was one year that was particularly stacked for Disney. None of the either studios really had big franchise hits either. Disney's 2020 roster is expected to be much worse too.

[Jim Kelly]

It isn't just about monopolies over one industry. Companies have been broken up by law when they control both the product and the means of distribution. This happened in the past when movie companies owned both the studios and the theatres. Or when corporations become involved in financial scandals and improper trade practices, they can be broken up. The company that owned National Periodicals (DC) and Warner Brothers--Kinney National--was broken up into two different companies, Warner and National Kinney.

Sometimes a company just needs revenue and will sell off a part of the company to get back into the black. Sometimes conglomerates get bought up just so the new owner can break up the company and sell off the divisions.

AT&T isn't an entertainment company--it's a telecommunications and technology company. It merged with Time-Warner to get content to carry on its services. But that's not its primary business. If owning its own content is no more profitable than carrying content from another provider, then it wouldn't have a reason to own the content--and it could decide to sell off that content to raise more money for the technology side of the corporation.

The ten richest companies in the world are not entertainment companies--they might have part ownership in some entertainment companies, but that's not their primary business. Entertainment for them is relatively small potatoes.

10. Exxon Mobil – $205 billion
9. Apple Inc. – $215.6 billion
8. Berkshire Hathaway – $223.7 billion
7. Royal Dutch Shell – $240 billion
6. Volkswagen – $240.3 billion
5. Toyota Motor – $254.7 billion
4. China National Petroleum Corporation – $262.6 billion
3. Sinopec Group – $267.5 billion
2. State Grid Corporation of China – $315.2 billion
1. Walmart – $485.9 billion