Disney-Fox Acquisition Moves Closer To Completion With Approval Of Chinese Regulators

It looks like Marvel fans are one step closer to seeing the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and all of 20^th Century Fox's other mutants, make their way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Disney's just made another major step in its acquisition of Fox and its various film and television assets today with the deal finally seeing approval from regulators from China.

According to a new report by Variety, Chinese regulators have just given their thumbs up on the Mickey Mouse House's attempt at purchasing Fox. While the deal has long been in the making, the acquisition of a major company like Fox can take quite some time considering that the purchase requires the approval of regulators both in the US and abroad. Last week, Disney managed to convince the European Commission to give the go on the acquisition – of course, with a few conditions.

"To address the Commission's competition concerns, Disney committed to divest its interest in all factual channels it controls in the European Economic Area (EEA), namely: History, H2, Crime & Investigation, Blaze and Lifetime channels," The European Commission said in a statement. "These channels are currently controlled by A+E Television Networks, which is a joint venture between Disney and Hearst. The commitments fully remove the overlap between Disney's and Fox's activities in the wholesale supply of factual channels in the EEA... Therefore, the Commission concluded that the proposed transaction, as modified by the commitments, would no longer raise competition concerns. The Commission's decision is conditional upon full compliance with the commitments."

Still, even with its conditions in place, a win is a win for Disney. Now, with Chinese regulation down pat, it doesn't seem that difficult for Disney to reach its benchmark of completing the acquisition by 2019. Having both Europe and China on its side is major progress for Disney, and hopefully, the deal sees completion during the first half of the year next year.

There's been a whole lot of anticipation over the merger between the two companies, with many Marvel fans itching to finally see the arrival of Fox's mutants to the MCU. Disney has already expressed its intent to bring Marvel's various film properties all in one place, and everyone's excited to see the X-Men and the Fantastic Four thrive under the guidance of Kevin Feige and his creative team.

Marvel's next film, Avengers 4, premieres May 3, 2019.

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