The Wall Street Journal is reporting that, more than likely, Disney will be very hands-on with some of Fox’s most popular franchises, such as Avatar and X-Men. But where does that leave some Fox franchises that are not very Disney family friendly, like the Aliens, Predator and the Deadpool franchises?

From Looper:

A sweeping new report from The Wall Street Journal has shined a light onto the pending merger process, focusing in part on the uncomfortable reality of the colliding movie studios.

According to the report, the pending merger has left the people and projects-in-progress at Fox in a state of anxious limbo. Many on the 20th Century Fox side are rightly sweating it out as they prepare for what are being described as significant downsizing measures as the two studios combine their assets, eliminate redundancies, and identify what projects in-the-works are worth moving forward with under the Disney brand.

Naturally, this has left the fate of multiple projects uncertain. In other words — a whole lot of people are about to lose their jobs, and it’s all because you just couldn’t go without seeing the Fantastic Four in the MCU.

Two properties that appear to be more than safe under the new regime will be the Avatar and X-Men franchises, which Disney is expected to take control of. It’s no surprise that Disney would keep those properties going, with Avatar remaining the worldwide top-grossing movie of all time and the X-Men series being one of the ten most successful film franchises ever. But what this will actually look like in practice is still up in the air.

Of course Disney is willing to welcome the Avatar franchise with open arms, especially since Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time, with the film bringing in $2.778 billion worldwide. And Avatar already has a huge presence at the Walt Disney World with Pandora at Animal Kingdom. With the Fox deal moving forward, Disney and Avatar could not ask for any better synergy.

Then there is the fairly profitable X-Men franchise, which will naturally fit well within Marvel Studios. And hopefully, Marvel can work its magic, like it did with the Spider-Man franchise, for The Fantastic Four. That franchise should have made close to a billion for Fox, but it helps when you have someone working on Fantastic Four, that knows the Fantastic Four. Go get em, Marvel!

But what about famous Fox franchises, such as Alien and Predator? Both of these franchises could not say Disney more than these two. The last Alien movie, Alien Covenant, made a disappointing $74 million at the US box office. It did far better overseas, bringing in $166 million. But the declining box office may make Disney concerned about future films for the series. Next month, we will see the return of the Predator franchise, with a reboot of the series. Disney will definitely be looking at how this movie performs and ultimately decide whether a sequel will be a priority after the two companies offically merge.

And of course, Disney can not overlook the success of the Deadpool franchise. Deapool 2 may not have been as profitable as the original Deadpool movie, but the sequel did bring in $733 million world wide, and that is not bad at all. But exactly how would Deadpool fit in the MCU? Would it be the R rated Deadpool, that fans seem to love, or will Disney tweak the character and give him a PG-13 makeover, so that he will fit in with the rest of the characters of the MCU?

Only time will tell for sure, but it looks like that we will see some franchises receive a lot of love from Disney, while others may be soon sleeping with the fishes.

Source: WSJ, Looper