Disney Cashes in on Fox Acquisition at Oscars

by Ray Keating

News/Analysis

DisneyBizJournal.com

January 14, 2020

The Walt Disney Company has cashed in nicely on its Fox acquisition in terms of Oscar nominations.

The battle between Hollywood titans – new and long established – was on display with the announcement of Oscar nominations, as Netflix – the new in Hollywood – garnered 24 nominations, and Disney – the long-established in Hollywood – came in number two with 23 nominations. One gets the feeling that the Netflix-vs.-Disney battle will be playing out in all kinds of ways for years to come, from the number of streaming subscribers to the luring of talent to the number of award nominations and wins. Although innovation and technology offer no guarantees to either Netflix or Disney.

As for Disney’s nominations, key big ones were thanks to Fox. For example, Disney’s two Best Picture nominees were both Fox products – Ford v Ferrari and JoJo Rabbit. (Check out our review of Ford v Ferrari in which we concluded: “Perhaps there will be some nominations at Oscar time that will give this worthy movie an extra boost at the box office.”) Scarlett Johansson also earned one of her two actress nominations for Jojo Rabbit. 

In total, Ford v Ferrari earned four nominations, and Jojo Rabbit came in with six. Toss in a nomination for sound mixing for Ad Astra (see our review of this solid film), and one for original song for Breakthrough, and 12 of the Disney nominations came thanks to Fox.

Among other notables, John Williams’ score for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker received a nomination, and Toy Story 4was nominated for best animated feature (see our review for a different take on Toy Story 4). For good measure, Avengers Endgame, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and The Lion King were all nominated for best visual effects.

Stay tuned. We’ll have more to say on Endgame in the next DisneyBizJournal piece on the Oscars.

The Oscars will be awarded on Sunday evening, February 9^th.

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of The Disney Planner 2020: The TO DO List Solution and the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at  raykeating@keatingreports.com.