More like 18 months.
There's the regulator to wait for (because the merger is potentially subject to antitrust regulation), then there's whether or not FOX will actually get sold.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, there's a $1.5 billion penalty for FOX if Murdoch backs out at the last second - but if he's only pretending to go through with the sale to try and make himself look respectable for regulators elsewhere, it wouldn't be the first time he'd paid a lot of money and gained an advantage.
Nothing has been transferred yet. They're separate companies.
Assuming it does go through, it'll be two years or more before you start seeing changes.
> Deadpool 2 and Dark Pheonix since those were already in production
Correct.
>New Mutants
Also allegedly done, but apparently terrible, which you might expect for a movie made in under a year from concept to screen date.
>Shadowcat
Believe it when it happens, not before.
>Gambit
Not happening - fell apart years ago, but FOX are still stuck with the contract star and don't want to pay him off so they can recast.
>Dr Doom solo
I'd put that in the same bracket as the eventually imaginary 2016 Silver Surfer solo movie. People make plans, plans go nowhere, let's just say that.
>Why is Disney allowing
Disney is a different company and will be for years deal or no deal.
>I thought the whole point
Ah.
This is a different sort of deal - even if it goes through, it's not a rights buyback. It's the purchase, in whole, with existing contracts, employees, liabilities - of FOX. So even after the sale and transfer, FOX would still own the X-Men, FF etc.
It *should* be easy to transfer those rights back to Marvel (but they'd still have to be paid for, ironically, though Disney wouldn't actually pay more money, just transfer it between companies), but the big kicker is the casting contracts would remain intact, so recasting would mean buying people out of any unused appearances they signed for.
