The Disney-Fox Acquisition Will Close On March 20, Disney Announces

Disney's acquisition of Fox is finally coming to fruition. The Walt Disney Company has set the Disney-Fox acquisition closing date for March 20, 2019, nearly two years after the historic multi-billion dollar deal was first announced.

Deadline reports that Disney has set a March 20 closing date for its acquisition of key entertainment assets from 21st Century Fox in a $71.3 billion transaction. The date was included in a release in which Disney indicated that it had received the last major share approval for the deal from regulators in Mexico.

According to Disney, the acquisition is expected to become effective at 12:02 a.m. EST on March 20, 2019. 21st Century Fox shareholders will have until Thursday to choose the amount of cash and Disney stock to receive, valued at $38 a share in the deal.

In December 2017, this acquisition looked like it might happen for $52.4 billion — even then, a price tag that was considered unprecedented in a questionably legal deal. But eventually the price was driven all the way up to a massive $71.3 billion. Disney ultimately received the approval of the Justice Department despite concerns that the deal would be in violation of antitrust laws, but faced a few other bumps in the long road to finalization, as Comcast forced Disney to raise its bid when it approached Fox with a higher offer. Comcast ended up bowing out of the Fox bidding, leaving a clear (albeit more expensive) path for Disney to swoop in.

The Disney-Fox acquisition has received notable attention from the pop culture world thanks to the impending incorporation of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, those elements often overshadow the human costs of the deal, which will almost certainly result in at least 4,000 employees losing their jobs.

And while the Disney-Fox deal may finally be coming to a close, it still could take years to assimilate the Fox properties and employees under the Disney umbrella. So it still may be a little while before you see Wolverine cross claws with Black Panther on the big screen.