Yesterday, CNBC reported that the Walt Disney Company was in talks to acquire 21st Century Fox's film division, as well as most of its cable assets. Fox would retain its broadcast network, its cable news and sports stations, as well as its corporate-owned local television affiliates. Before the day was out, however, additional details came out, revealing that while Disney and Fox had been in discussions, they had broken down several weeks ago, and the deal is apparently dead.

But corporate deals have a tendency of coming back from the dead, especially in Hollywood. A couple of years ago, for instance, Marvel reached a deal with Sony to bring Spider-Man to the MCU, an arrangement that was announced shortly after reports surfaced indicating that deal was also dead. So there's still a very real chance Disney and Fox could reach an agreement, giving Disney -- and Marvel Studios -- control of the X-Men and Fantastic Four, as well as resolving some complicated distribution issues around the Star Wars franchise.

But, even if the parties agree, could a Disney/Fox deal actually go through? Or would potential antitrust issues sink the deal before it's done?

Because of the size of the deal, Disney and Fox would be required to file with the government before they could consummate the agreement. The pre-merger clearance process would very likely take a number of months, and the final deal might look very different from what the studios agreed to at the beginning, especially if Disney is required to sell Fox assets to get government approval.

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Disney and Fox appear to have taken antitrust concerns to heart in structuring the deal. The most severe potential conflicts—between the ABC and Fox networks and between ESPN and Fox Sports—have been avoided entirely. With these stations—as well as Fox News—remaining with Fox, Disney and Fox's cable networks would complement each other well, offering few, if any, instances of direct competition. While Disney's cable networks tend to be geared toward younger viewers, Fox's FX family of networks target an adult audience. Disney would finally have an in-house destination for its more sophisticated programming, such as the Marvel Netflix series.

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One fairly significant hurdle remains, though: Disney and Fox are two of the four largest film studios, and together would make up more than one-third of the American movie market.

According to box office figures from Box Office Mojo, between 2014 and October 2017, Disney was the largest film studio, accounting for just over 20% of total box office ticket sales. On a year-to-year basis, the company's market share ranged from about 15% (2014) to over 27% of ticket sales (2015, the year of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Age of Ultron). While Disney's 2017 ticket sales have thus far been on the lower end (just under 17%), figures do not yet include the highly-successful Thor: Ragnarok or the almost-certain-to-be-a-hit Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.

Meanwhile, during the same period, Fox accounted for just under 15% of the domestic box office, making it the fourth largest film studio, behind Disney, Warner Brothers, and Universal. The four studios together account for about 70% of the domestic market, with Sony/Columbia (10%), Paramount (7.5%), Lions Gate (7%), and various indies (~5%) making up the rest.

RELATED: What Would a Fox/Disney Deal Mean for Marvel, X-Men & Fantastic Four?

While now the film industry is dominated by four large studios of roughly equal market share, a Disney/Fox merger would create a mega-studio that was nearly twice as large as its closest rival and that controlled a vast franchise library. It's easy to imagine antitrust regulators at the Federal Trade Commission worrying that such a large studio could dominate the industry, or that other studios might also feel the need to unite to compete. There is thus a very real risk that even if Disney and Fox can make a deal work, it will be killed by federal regulators long before Wolverine shows up in an Avengers sequel. Indeed, it's a good chance that it was antitrust risk, not failure to come to an agreement, that killed the proposed deal the first time around.

Assuming the Disney/Fox deal does not go through as originally proposed, what might we see instead? There are a few possibilities.

The simplest option would be that Fox just keeps going on as it is now. But, having now proposed the idea of selling large parts of itself off, shareholder pressure will be high for Fox to find a buyer for at least part of its business.

Alternatively, Fox could sell Disney a more limited package of assets, including its cable channels, the rights to Fox-produced Marvel properties (the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises), and the Star Wars distribution rights. While the Marvel properties account for a significant portion of Fox's film revenues -- about 17% for the period 2014-2017 -- the studio is certainly viable without them, and would still be the fourth largest player in the industry. A more limited deal with Disney could make significant sums for Fox shareholders, without raising serious antitrust concerns. Fox could then either keep its film studio, or sell it to a third party, with Sony/Columbia or Viacom/Paramount especially attractive options because of both their deep corporate pockets and their smaller market shares.

Finally, Fox could sell its film studio and cable channels to someone else, with Sony and Viacom again likely contenders. If this were the case, Disney could still end up with the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Star Wars rights, as Fox's purchaser could decide it was more lucrative to sell them than to try to monetize them themselves. Or, in the case of Sony, the existing agreement with Marvel Studios over Spider-Man could be expanded to also include the X-Men and Fantastic Four.

So while I'm pessimistic that the Disney/Fox deal as initially announced will ever happen, I'm more optimistic than I've been in a long time that we'll see the Fantastic Four and maybe even the X-Men in the MCU sometime in the near-ish future.