More than 4,000 layoffs are expected — with one analyst saying the number could climb as high as 10,000 — in the Disney acquisition of the 21st Century Fox entertainment assets, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Once Disney’s $71.3 billion acquisition of a wide swath of 21st Century Fox is complete — possibly by as early as the end of February — one of Hollywood’s most storied studios, the home of Shirley Temple movies, ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Avatar,’ will simply disappear,” Pamela McClintock and Paul Bond write in an in-depth analysis of the merger published today by THR.

“Assimilating the Fox properties and their thousands of employees is a Herculean task, one that experts say could take years to sort out using dozens of third-party consultants, advisers and compliance officers,” the piece adds. “Never in the modern era has one major studio gobbled up another. That’s been a job left to interlopers like AT&T buying Time Warner in 2018 for $85.4 billion or Comcast acquiring a majority stake in NBCUniversal in 2011.”

The report quotes analyst and author Hal Vogel saying: “Merging Disney and Fox studios is enormously complex. One reason is that many talented, well-connected execs are and will be — much more than usual — vying for the same jobs.”

Meanwhile, “Disney-skeptic analyst Rich Greenfield,” as he’s described in the piece, says the number of jobs lost as a result of the merger may reach 5,000 to 10,000 over time.

We encourage readers to click on the link above to THR to read the full analysis.