Recently, Disney and Fox agreed to a merger that would allow the House of Mouse to takeover a significant portion of Twentieth Century Fox's assets, including its movie and television products. The deal could take about a year to go through, but when it does, it will drop the number of major movie studios from six to five, those being Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony, and Walt Disney Studios. Recently, Sony Pictures Entertainment chairperson Tony Vinciquerra said that he sees the venture between Fox and Disney as the wave of the future for the movie business, and he hopes that Sony is able to get ahead of the curve. Per Vinciquerra,
If we don't grow, we will be somebody's purchase. I didn't take the job to do it for a year and sell the company.
Vincinquerra only recently took over his gig at Sony, spending the time since he was hired last June looking into the studio's priorities. In a Q&A with Soledad O'Brien (via Variety), the chairman revealed that he believes in the coming years the movie studios may shrink from the big six to only three or four in the future. If Sony is to survive that potential merging, it will need to begin thinking outside the box, preparing for a business that "is changing rapidly," according to Tony Vinciquerra. In fact, Sony even tried to get in on the Twentieth Century Fox negotiations, but at the point where the studio entered the fray, Disney and Fox had already started talks.
If Sony's idea is to be a bigger player in the market, the last few months have gotten the studio off to a good start. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a Sony venture. Made on only a $90 million budget, plus advertising of course, Jumanji has so far pulled in over $700 million dollars worldwide. It is currently the sixth-highest box office intake for a Sony movie of all time, and the film still has a few more weeks in theaters before it is tapped out, so it could bump up even higher on the list. Sony took a big swing with Jumanji, taking a familiar premise like Jumanji and reworking it for a modern audience.
As for the Disney and Fox merger, Disney has been planning two streaming services for a while, one geared toward original content and another geared toward sports. Adding Fox's holdings in terms of TV and movies would give Disney a leg up against competition like Netflix and Hulu, and the addition of more sports content that Fox currently has a corner should help the other, sports-oriented streaming service immensely. Sony may not have similar holdings, but it does have the rights to Spider-Man characters on film and some other interesting film properties. Another studio might eventually come calling as a suitor to buy, and it seems like the studio's goal to stay ahead of that curve.
