Ridley Scott defended the Republican tax overhaul during an
interview about his new film, saying the bill will result in business
owners reinvesting and generating economic growth. The topic came up as the legendary movie director spoke to theDenver Post about his latest movie, "All The Money In The World," which is based on the true story of a kidnapping in Italy in the 1970s. "There’s a lot [sic] commentary in this film about the value
of human life, class struggles and the role of wealth in society,"
interviewer John Wenzel said. "Do you think there’s anything to be
learned from it at this moment in America?" "Well, let’s take the tax bill," Scott said. "People say
(Republicans) are doing it for the wealthy class. What they forget is if
you get a clever, un-selfish business person—I don’t care if it’s a
corner store or a big business—who’s suddenly saving 15 percent, they’ll
put it back in this business."
"Then you’re going to get growth and therefore (people) will
get employed," Scott added. "My concern is with the elderly, the infirm
and the youth who need to have chances and shots for every level, and
equality in education. But you have to use it. You have to get your
(expletive) head down and use it." President Donald Trump signed
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law last week. The bill, which was
passed with only Republican support in the Congress, lowered the
corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, in addition to cutting
individual rates and repealing the individual mandate of the Affordable
Care Act. Democrats have characterized the $1.5 trillion tax cut as
favoring the wealthy and increasing the national debt, while Republicans
say the overhaul will pay for itself with booming economic growth. Scott is in his fifth decade as a director. His works include "Alien," "Blade Runner," "Gladiator," and "The Martian."
True, Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: TheLast Jedi is
responsible for driving 79% of the weekend’s overall business with a
$220M opening. However, Fox’s product is solid in the shadow of Last Jedi. Their Blue Studios animated film Ferdinandmade $13.3M, a good start that will only swell during the holidays (their Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip generated a 6x multiple off a $14.2M opening versus Force Awakens’ near $248M opening). Before Fox’s Murder on the Orient Express opened (the movie also stars Last Jedi‘s Daisy Ridley), the film on paper appeared to be a challenge with its period setting. That’s hardly the case with Murder set to cross $100M a month later, fueled largely by an over-50 audience. On top of this, Fox Searchlight’s awards contenders are coming in ahead from where we saw them on Saturday with The Shape of Water earning $1.7M this weekend and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri making $1.6M. Disney also has Pixar’s Coco in third place drawing $10M and Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok in 7th place with close to $3M.20th Century Fox is also opening the period Hugh Jackman musical about P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman on Wednesday. So not only is a Disney-Fox combination event driven in the current weekend, but appealing to a diversity of demos as well. Where does this leave the competition? They don’t have any wide
releases this weekend; Sony kicks off the Christmas flood on Wednesday
with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.However, the highest grossing non-Disney/Fox movie this weekend belongs to Lionsgate’s Wonder which
is generating $5.4M in fourth place in its 5th weekend. We’ll have a
better idea in the weekends ahead how much air the competition can
inhale. While the DOJ works on approving the Disney-Fox deal,
both labels will operate separately with business as usual. Next year,
both studios together count 26 titles across Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar,
Disney animation, Blue Studios, 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000 and Fox
Searchlight. Whether they maintain this consistent outflow in the years
to come, and how they counterprogram their labels is the big question.
Nonetheless, box office dominance is a guarantee.
James Murdoch could be the next CEO of Disney, a report says.
Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters
If companies follow through on possible Disney takeover of Fox, James
and his father, Rupert, could take top jobs, Financial Times reports.
The Fox boss James Murdoch
is reportedly being considered as a potential successor to Bob Iger,
chief executive of Walt Disney, if the two companies reach agreement on a
possible takeover. According to the Financial Times,
Rupert Murdoch and his younger son, James, could take senior roles at a
combined company if a deal is struck. Iger, 66, is due to retire in
2019 and James Murdoch, 44, currently chief executive of 21st Century
Fox and chairman of the satellite broadcaster Sky, is a possible
successor. Disney began holding on-and-off discussions to take over some of Fox’s major assets
last month. The sale would include Fox’s movie studio, cable channels
and international units – Sky and Star India. It could be worth more
than $60bn and would reshape the media landscape.
But Disney is not Fox’s only suitor. Comcast,
the US’s largest cable operator and owner of NBC Universal, the TV
network and movie studio company, is also reported to be assessing a
bid, as is Verizon, the largest US telecoms group. Neither company was immediately available for comment. “No promises
have been made,” one person briefed on the talks told the FT. Any such deal is likely to run into trouble with shareholders who
have consistently criticized the Murdochs over corporate governance. The
takeover comes as their stewardship is under question following a
series of sexual harassment charges at Fox. Those allegations have
triggered an official inquiry by the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK into plans to buy the rest of Sky. Iger has been Disney’s boss since 2005 and is one of the most highly
rated executives in media. The company has, however, struggled to groom a
successor. Disney’s chief operating officer, Tom Staggs, once seen as
Iger’s top pick, resigned in 2016 after the board failed to assure him
he would be Iger’s heir. More recently, Facebook’s chief operating
officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has been tipped as a potential hire.
The possible Fox sale comes in as the media landscape is being
reshaped by the entry of new players including Apple, Amazon and
Netflix. Pressure on cable subscriptions and competition for assets has
set off a wave of mega-deals. AT&T is in the midst of an $85.4bn takeover of Time Warner, but that deal is now struggling. The US justice department sued to block the
deal last month, arguing that a takeover would “substantially lessen
competition, resulting in higher prices and less innovation for millions
of Americans”. That deal is now heading to court, with AT&T suggesting the
justice department stepped in because of Donald Trump’s open antipathy
to the “fake news” he claims is being generated by Time Warner’s CNN.
Comcast, too, was heavily criticized by US officials during its
ultimately successful bid for NBC Universal in 2009, and regulators
appear concerned about media mergers that combine content – films and TV
– with delivery – cable and satellite. According to the FT, the Murdochs favour a deal with Disney, as they
believe it poses the lowest regulatory risk. Competition from the tech
giants may have strengthened arguments for the merger of content
companies. According to CNBC, which
first broke the news of the discussions, Disney and Fox are now close
to making an agreement and an announcement could come as early as next
week.
The sale of the Murdochs’ prime media assets would leave them with
control of News Corp, which owns a portfolio of newspapers – including
the Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Sun.
Rupert Murdoch’s apparent willingness to sell most of 21st Century Fox to Disney suggests the media mogul’s interest in taking full control of Sky has unexpectedly diminished. The Sky deal has proved problematic for the Murdochs since their bid
was first announced last December, with the takeover facing regulatory hurdles and political opposition in the UK, with allegations of sexual harassment at Fox News being one of the reasons used to justify referring the takeover to the competition watchdog. It had widely been considered that it was a longstanding ambition of
Murdoch to take full control of Sky. The mogul has not completely
controlled the company since 1990, consistently holding just 39% of the
shares. He also tried to buy it in 2011, but the takeover was derailed at the last minute by the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World. A sale to Disney of the Sky stake and the 20th Century Fox
film studio would therefore represent a dramatic U-turn in strategy for
the family and raise questions about their ambitions in the media
industry. Rupert Murdoch has traditionally been a buyer of assets rather
than a seller and, given that he is 86 years old, the Disney deal would
leave a diminished family empire for his sons Lachlan and James. As a result, some believe that talks of a sale of are exaggerated.
One senior media source said the leak of the talks between Disney and
Fox could be Rupert Murdoch
“playing games”. They added: “This is either putting a ‘for sale’ sign
up on their assets, or it is a message to Time Warner that they have a
last chance to join them.”
Fox tried to buy Time Warner, the owner of Warner Brothers, HBO and
CNN, in a $80bn (then £46.7bn) deal three years ago. It eventually withdrew its bid
after failing to reach an agreement with Time Warner, which
subsequently struck a deal with telecoms group AT&T. However, this
tie-up is yet to be approved by President Trump’s administration and a
story last week by the Wall Street Journal – a Murdoch newspaper – said
that the government may attempt to block the transaction. The Murdochs have long argued that scale in the media industry would
be vital to compete against global technology giants such as Google,
Facebook, Amazon and Netflix, who are transforming TV, film and media.
Their media empire is larger than many, but the 21st Century Fox business itself is just a third the size of Disney and a 10th of Amazon. The question is whether Fox is large enough to compete in the Silicon
Valley streaming-media era. In a speech at the Royal Television Society
convention in Cambridge in September, James Murdoch talked again of the importance of scale, saying: “Tomorrow’s commercial media needs to be able to compete globally, and at unprecedented scale … “Although brands that matter and diverse storytelling will remain
necessary conditions, we will still need the freedom to take risks and
the strength to compete that only comes from global scale. “Scale provides the confidence to invest strategically, take risks,
and support the development of new technologies and innovation –
critical attributes in this dynamic period.”
That was considererd an argument as to why Fox should be allowed to
buy Sky, but with hindsight it could also refer to Fox itself, given the
Disney talks were already ongoing. Fox was speaking to Disney in the last few weeks
about a deal that would involve the sale of its movie studios, cable
services FX and National Geographic and international assets such as
Star India and as well as the 39% stake in Sky. The deal would not
include Fox’s US TV network, Fox News or its sports channels . For the Murdochs, the deal would represent a retreat in
entertainment, but it would also allow them to focus on news and sport
in the US, the UK and Australia. That would pave the way for the
remainder of Fox to be potentially reunited with their other business,
News Corp, which owns the Sun, the Times, the Wall Street Journal and
the largest newspaper operation in Australia. Barton Crockett at FBR Capital Markets said: “It would seem strange to us that Sky chairman James Murdoch would let Fox exit Sky before completing the bid to buy the 61% they don’t currently own.” But, he added, if there was a switch from Fox to Disney, that could
also make a takeover of the satellite broadcaster easier to complete:
“We suppose Disney could face less regulatory scrutiny for the Sky
acquisition than Fox.” Were such a takeover to take place, it would mean that Sky and the
Fox film studio would be swallowed up by the vast company behind not
just the the historic Disney studio, but superhero factory Marvel,
Lucasfilm, the maker of Star Wars, and the Pixar animation studio,
creating a business with a market value of close to $200bn (£150bn).
