... over Darryl Zanuck's old company.
The arm-wrestling match for most of the body parts of 20th Century Fox is, apparently, near an end:
Walt Disney Co. is close to winning U.S. antitrust approval for its $71 billion deal for 21st Century Fox Inc.’s entertainment assets, according to a person familiar with the matter, creating a potentially insurmountable hurdle for a rival bid from Comcast Corp.
The Justice Department is set to approve the deal in as soon as two weeks, said the person, who declined to be named because the investigation is confidential. Disney has agreed to sell some assets to address competition problems stemming from the tie-up, according to the person. ...
If Bloomberg is right, it's all over but the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth by Comcast-NBC-Universal. (That's assuming there are no further bids.) Rupert M. & Company must be giddy over the prospect of amassing an even LARGER fortune.
As previously stated, the Walt Disney will end up with a lot more animation assets when this deal is finally, at last, put to bed. There's Blue Sky Studios and its backlog of features; then there's the hundreds of hours of Fox's prime-time cartoons.
No doubt the wily Mouse will find new and innovative ways to exploit all the new intellectual property. (CG reboots, anyone?)
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