The deal includes Fox’s 39% stake in satellite broadcaster Sky, and the 20th Century Fox film studio, Disney announced.

Fox’s remaining assets, including Fox News and Sports, will form a new company.

The deal ends more than half a century of media expansion by Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, who is 86 years old.

He turned a single Australian newspaper he inherited from his father at the age of 21 into one of the world’s largest news and film empires.

Mr Murdoch will still retain control of News Corp, the news publishing group that split away from 21st Century Fox in 2013 and which owns the Times and the Sun newspapers.

Disney’s purchase will add to its huge back catalogue, with high-grossing films such as the original Star Wars movie, the Marvel superhero pictures, Avatar and Deadpool, as well as TV hits including The Simpsons.

Disney chief executive Bob Iger said that Disney was “incredibly excited” about the acquisition, and that it was an “opportunity to expand iconic franchises”, including Avatar and Star Wars.

“May the Force be with us all,” Mr Iger said.

Succession question

Mr Murdoch’s shift to selling assets rather than buying them has come as a surprise to those who expected him to hand over the businesses to his sons, James and Lachlan.

James Murdoch had been widely tipped to be given a senior role at Disney. But Mr Iger told Good Morning America: “James and I will be talking over the next couple of months. He will be integral to the integration process. He and I will be discussing whether there is a role for him or not at our company.”

Mr Iger will remain in his role until the end of 2021.

It is not clear how the deal will be received by US competition regulators.

The US Department of Justice recently sued to block AT&T’s $85.4bn deal to buy Time Warner, on the basis that it will raise prices for consumers and competitors.

In the UK, Fox’s proposed deal to buy the remainder of Sky is being already investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is due to publish provisional findings in January.

The BBC understands that the Disney deal will not alter that CMA investigation.

Rupert Murdoch said: “If things go wrong, the existing [Sky] shares go to Disney. It will be up to them to decide what to do.”

Fox is selling assets including its FX and National Geographic cable channels and media company Star India.

Disney also will buy Fox’s stake in the Hulu video streaming service, giving it majority control of a competitor to Netflix.

Hulu is also partially owned by Comcast and Time Warner.

Paolo Pescatore, an analyst with CCS Insight, said: “The move will firmly establish Disney as one of the leading media companies in the world and puts it in a great position to compete head on with the threat posed by the web providers such as Amazon and Facebook.”

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By: BBC

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Bob Iger didn’t name the film, but it was thought to be Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

But now Iger has told Yahoo Finance: “To our knowledge we were not hacked.”

“We decided to take [the threat] seriously but not react in the manner in which the person who was threatening us had required.”

But, he added: “We don’t believe that it was real and nothing has happened.”

Iger had told employees earlier this month that the hackers had demanded the ransom in bitcoin and that they would release the film online in a series of 20-minute chunks unless it was paid.

The Disney boss was keen to stress how technology has benefitted Disney but also said it also presented significant challenges to the film industry.

“In today’s world, cyber security is a front burner issue,” he said.

“We like to view technology more friend than foe… [but] it is also a disruptor.”

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Source: BBC

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Gary Goldman, whose credits include Total Recall and Minority Report, is suing the firm and says elements of the film are based on his work.

He claims Disney copied themes, settings, plot, characters and dialogue and the title of his Zootopia concept.

Mr Goldman also claims he pitched the idea to the studio in 2000 and 2009.

The copyright infringement case suggests Disney works in “a culture that not only accepts the unauthorised copying of others’ original material, but encourages it”.

Gary Goldman wants damages, including from merchandise sales, to reflect what he calls Disney’s “wanton, deliberate, malicious, and wilful misconduct”.

In a statement responding to the claims, Disney said: “Mr. Goldman’s lawsuit is riddled with patently false allegations.

“It is an unprincipled attempt to lay claim to a successful film he didn’t create, and we will vigorously defend against it in court.”

Co-directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore with Zootopia producer Clark Spencer at this year’s Oscars

Zootopia has taken more than $1bn (£800m) worldwide since it was released in March 2016 and last month it won the Oscar for best animated feature film.

During his acceptance speech, the film’s co-director Byron Howard said development for the film had started in 2011, “in hopes when the film came out it would make the world just a slightly better place”.

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Source: BBC

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It’s rare that the company delves too far into how the “magic” – as they call it – works. Their logic is a magic trick doesn’t get better if you know how it’s done.

On Saturday, Disney – quite uncharacteristically – gave us a bit of an insight into how they plan to use technology to bring their much-loved brand of storytelling to new forms, by using robotics and artificial intelligence.

Jon Snoddy, the company’s senior Vice President for research and development, explained how soon you’ll be able to interact with story-telling robots at Disney parks.

“I think AI [artificial intelligence] and machine learning is going to be very important for what we do,” he told the BBC.

“Things like characters that can move around among our guests. They’re going to need to understand where they’re going, have goals, and they’re going to have to know how to navigate in a world with humans.

“All these emerging technologies are going to be key to the next generation of entertainment.”

Robotic Pascal
During a panel discussion, the company shared footage – which unfortunately we’re not able to republish here – of a robotic Pascal, the cute lizard from 2010 movie Tangled.

It’s a terrific recreation of the digital character, but the real challenge for Disney will be to avoid the so-called “uncanny valley” – the theory that if something is very lifelike, but not exactly right, it can be slightly creepy or disturbing.

“Obviously we’re not the business of scaring kids!” Mr Snoddy said.

“That won’t be part of what we deploy. We go and do tests in our parks to gauge the reaction and try and understand what kids find entertaining about these things. Our ability to build these characters at a fidelity that looks like the films is really growing.”

When these technologies are fully deployed in Disney parks, and perhaps as toys, Mr Snoddy said Disney will do everything it can to hide the inner technological workings.

“Every new technology that’s come along for the last 60, 70 years we have adopted and co-opted and made it into a story telling medium,” he said.

“This won’t be different. We’re not going to put up a sign that says ‘Look! Artificial intelligence’, because no-one would come to see that. They really come to be moved emotionally, that will not change.”

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Source: BBC

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