Note: This story has been updated to reflect the most recent developments regarding the Fox/Disney deal.

Thanks to its $71.3 billion acquisition of News Corp.’s 21st Century Fox film assets, Disney is now the most powerful movie studio that has ever existed.The deal -- a seismic shift in the entertainment industry landscape --(20th Century Fox has been around since 1935), provides Disney with even more content for their upcoming streaming service, andto include formerly Fox-controlled Marvel characters like the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Doctor Doom, Silver Surfer, and Galactus.While that final point may matter most to many in fandom, those hoping for a Wolverine/Avengers movie nevertheless need to truly understand just how big a deal this is outside of what characters the MCU now gets to play with (The acquisition of many of Fox’s television assets also provides Disney with an even greater foothold on the small screen , but I’m just focusing here primarily on the deal’s implications for the film industry.)

The X-Men and Fantastic Four Join the MCU

All the Marvel Characters Disney Will Get From Fox 21 IMAGES

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What Does This Mean for Fox -- and for Filmmakers?

Fox Movie and TV Show Properties Headed to Disney 18 IMAGES

Watch Out, Netflix

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Disney’s New Hope

The 25 Best Sci Fi Movies 26 IMAGES

Just How Big Does That Make Disney Now?

Movie Theaters Will Feel the Force

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This is the facet of the deal many fans probably care about most. Marvel, via Disney’s acquisition of Fox, will finally regain the screen rights to the X-Men and thus be able to eventually integrate them into the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside the Avengers and Spider-Man (who Marvel now shares with Sony).The timing of this deal probably couldn’t be better for the X-Men movie franchise. Wolverine has already been killed off. Dark Phoenix is expected to wrap up the main X-Men film series. The troubled, delayed New Mutants could very well end up ditched to a streaming service rather than its currently planned 2019 theatrical release. The fate of R-rated Deadpool had been a huge question mark until Disney boss Robert Iger clarified it after the announcement: "It [Deadpool] clearly has been and will be Marvel branded. But we think there might be an opportunity for a Marvel-R brand for something like Deadpool. ... As long as we let the audiences know what's coming, we think we can manage that fine." (Deadpool, it should be noted, was the only previously owned Fox-Marvel character included on the Disney homepage's now updated banner .)How might this Disney-Fox merger affect the X-Force movie that’s in development at Fox? Or actor Josh Brolin, who’s currently playing both Thanos in the MCU and Cable in Deadpool 2 and possibly X-Force? Does this mean Cable won’t reappear until after Thanos presumably wraps up his storyline in Avengers: Endgame? Is there even room or interest in the MCU for X-Force come Phase Four? We’ll see.In the months leading up to the completed acquisition, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige continually said they would not actively start developing any projects with the Fox-owned properties until the deal was done. Feige also said it would be possibly years before any Marvel Studios-produced X-Men or Fantastic Four movies would happen. Disney currently has unspecified Marvel films dated for release through 2021 so any FF or X-Men films would presumably happen after that.The Fantastic Four, tonally and even conceptually, would seem easier to reintroduce in the MCU than the X-Men. (Really, no one in the MCU has mentioned the existence of the much hated/feared mutants before?) There's been some debate about who actually controlled the Fantastic Four's screen rights -- Constantin Film reportedly held the production rights while Fox had the distribution rights -- and even the wording in Disney's official announcement said the agreement "provides Disney withto reunite the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool with the Marvel family under one roof." The key term there is "opportunity" ... maybe Disney still needs to cut a deal with Constantin for full control? Constantin is reportedly torn between its filmmaking business and its sports business so maybe they'll just take the Disney deal and let go of the Fantastic Four entirely (if they haven't already struck such a deal on the down low).As for X-Men, THR points out "there are producer deals that will need to be looked at and either untangled or bought out, say sources. Lauren Shuler Donner, who championed the 2000 film and has been a producer on all Fox's mutant-centric movies, is said to have a deal that calls for her to receive an executive producer credit on any X-Men movie whether or not she is actively involved. [Longtime X-Men producer/writer and Dark Phoenix director Simon} Kinberg may have a similar deal."Disney now adds Fox’s live-action and animated film assets -- 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Fox 2000, and Blue Sky Studios -- to its pricey collection of acquisitions that already includes Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, and Pixar Animation. To put it in Marvel-speak, think of Fox as the latest Stone in Disney’s Gauntlet.Blue Sky alone — the animation company behind Ferdinand and the Rio and Ice Age franchises — poses an interesting question: Does Disney even want another animation studio on top of Disney Animation, Pixar, and DisneyToon? Maybe Disney will sell off Blue Sky to a different studio that could use an animation company of its own.If Fox is scuttled entirely then that’s one less studio for filmmakers to make movies at (and one less employer for anyone working in any capacity in the film industry) and one less buyer for independently produced films in need of a theatrical distributor. But if Disney keeps Fox operating as a producer then what kind of movies will Disney have them make?Will Disney even want to continue making more Planet of the Apes or Alien movies when those series’ most recent entries all struggled commercially? Or will they find new ways to exploit those properties, like say maybe as theme park attractions instead? Disney already has Avatar and Star Wars theme parks so it’s not out of the realm of possibility.Disney boss Bob Iger has previously said he's open to seeing the profitable, R-rated Deadpool movies continue under Disney . ButIt’s possible maybe Disney thinks it needs more adults seeing their movies, that they need to diversify the types of films they’re offering viewers. It’s possible Disney could -- as it did in the ‘90s via its Miramax, Hollywood Pictures, and Touchstone labels -- use the more highbrow Fox Searchlight to distribute movies geared towards primarily adults.That said, Disney’s release slate through 2023 is currently(often based on existing IP) and. Fox currently has five movies going into production -- Fear Street, Free Guy, Mouse Guard, and remakes of West Side Story and Death on the Nile -- and after that it will be Disney's call what films get greenlit for production.In the meantime, Disney takes over the marketing for Fox's current 2019 release slate, including Dark Phoenix, and will likely shift the release dates of several Fox films slated to open against or close to Disney titles.Looking ahead, Hulu is expected to be the home for more adult-oriented content usually associated with Fox since R-rated content isn't expected to stream on Disney+ . Speaking of which ...The upcoming Disney+ streaming service will offer the entire Disney film library as well as new Star Wars and Marvel series. Disney's acquisition of Fox assets not only gives Disney a remarkable competitive advantage over rival movie studios but also pits them against the likes of Netflix and Amazon for dominance in the steaming realm.Disney’s massive library -- now combined with Fox’s own valuable TV and film library -- offers plenty of legacy content for consumers. The Fox acquisition also gives Disney their 39% stake in Hulu so Disney now has a majority share in that streaming service. “Owning a third of [Hulu] was great but having control will allow us to greatly accelerate Hulu into that space and become an even greater competitor to those already out there,” Iger said Long story short: George Lucas never owned the original film in his franchise, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. That 1977 film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, owned A New Hope while Lucas struck a subsequent deal that gave him ownership of all the subsequent films and all the Star Wars characters and merchandise. All of which he sold to Disney for $4 billion when they bought Lucasfilm in 2012.With Disney now fully owning the original movie there's more incentive to finally restoring and releasing the non- Special Edition versions of the original trilogy, a major undertaking that would require a lot of work. If and when that happens, surely it will be a day long remembered…As the following figures show, Disney knows how to make audiences go to the movies in droves. In 2016, Disney had a stellar 26.3% market share (the percentage of total sales in an industry by a particular company in a specific time period), dominating last year’s global box office with $7.6 billion (the first studio to ever hit $7 billion in global ticket sales). Disney's box office market share was 26% in 2018.20th Century Fox staked out a roughly 12% market share in both 2016 and 2017. Now Fox is one of Disney’s subjects in the magic kingdom, so you can see why one studio with that much combined presence would be such an almighty juggernaut for any studio to compete with. As one research analyst put it , “In a bad year, they’d be a quarter of domestic box office, in a good one they’d be half the market.”Some movie exhibitors are likely worried about one giant studio having such dominance in the marketplace. Smaller theaters balked at Disney’s demands for showing Star Wars: The Last Jedi. If Disney can conceivably earn up to 70% of ticket sales from just one such big movie -- a film expected to gross over $500 million domestically -- then they could make similarly taxing demands on other such surefire hits. Will theaters also get the big squeeze come Star Wars: Episode IX, or, with Fox’s titles now under their umbrella, the sequels to the highest-grossing film of all time, Avatar? Yeah, they probably will. If the tactic works the first time ..Some smaller domestic theaters decided it was better business for them to just not show The Last Jedi. There simply aren’t enough filmgoers in less populated areas for these smaller theaters to justify keeping the same movie playing there for weeks on end. Larger theater chains, however, will likely be more willing to play ball with Disney. (Chains have already figured out how to make more money off concessions -- food and, in higher-end cinemas, booze -- even when movie ticket sales are lagging.)Many theater chains are consolidating, thinking globally, and ramping up their overall in-theater experience so as to win back those who would rather stream/watch films on their phone or pirate them. In other words, they’re trying to give people a reason to actually leave home and go see movies. And Disney -- as evidenced by their box office success the last few years -- is clearly offering audiences the type of event movies people will go out to theaters to see.Other studios are also trying to do that but they must bear with Disney’s demands on movie exhibitors. Disney’s rivals would like to be able to show their films in as many theaters and on as many screens as possible. That’s tougher to do when theaters have a slew of their screens committed to Disney product for weeks on end.So ... what excites or concerns you about Disney's acquisition of Fox? Sound off in the Comments below!

Jim Vejvoda is IGN’s Executive Editor of Movies. Follow him on Twitter: @JimVejvoda