20th Century Studios

20th Century Studios, Inc. (formerly Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, colloquial: Twentieth Century Fox; 20th Century Fox; 20th; Fox) is an American film studio that is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is located on the Fox Broadcasting Company lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles.

For over 83 years, it was one of the "Big Six" major American film studios; formed from the merger of the Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures in 1935. In 1985, the studio was acquired by News Corporation, which was succeeded by 21st Century Fox in 2013 following the spin-off of its publishing assets. In 2019, Disney acquired 20th Century Fox through its merger with 21st Century Fox. In January 2020, Disney renamed the studio 20th Century Studios.

20th Century Studios has distributed famous film series, including the first two Star Wars trilogies, Ice Age, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Maze Runner, X-Men, Die Hard, Home Alone, Planet of the Apes, Independence Day, Night at the Museum, Power Rangers, Percy Jackson, Taken, Fantastic Four, Joy Ride, The Omen, Alien, Predator, Rio, and Alvin and the Chipmunks. The studio is also credited for distributing Avatar and Titanic, the highest and second highest grossing films respectively at the box-office not adjusted for inflation. Television series produced by Fox includes The Simpsons, Family Guy, M*A*S*H, The X-Files, Bob's Burgers, Bones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Futurama, American Dad!, How I Met Your Mother, Archer, Glee, Modern Family, Malcolm in the Middle, New Girl, King of the Hill, and 24. Among the most famous actresses to come out of this studio were Shirley Temple, who was 20th Century Fox's first film star, Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. The studio also contracted the first African-American cinema star, Dorothy Dandridge.

20th Century Studios is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). In 2015, 20th Century Studios celebrated their 80th anniversary as a studio.

Logo

The familiar 20th Century production logo originated as the logo of Twentieth Century Pictures and was adopted by 20th Century-Fox after the merger in 1935. It consists of a stacked block-letter three-dimensional, monolithic logotype (nicknamed "the Monument") surrounded by Art deco buildings and illuminated by searchlights. In the production logo that appears at the start of films, the searchlights are animated and the sequence is accompanied by a distinctive fanfare that was originally composed in 1933 by Alfred Newman. The original layout of the logo was designed by special effects animator and matte painting artist Emil Kosa Jr..

The 20th Century logo and fanfare have been recognised as an iconic symbol of a golden age of Hollywood. Its appearance at the start of popular films such as How Green Was My Valley (1941) and MASH (1970) established its recognition.

In 1953, Rocky Longo, an artist at Pacific Title, was hired to recreate the original logo design for the new CinemaScope picture process. Longo tilted the "0" in "20th" to have the logo maintain proportions in the wider CinemaScope format. Alfred Newman also re-composed the logo's fanfare with an extension to be heard during the CinemaScope logo that would follow after the Fox logo. Although the format had since declined, director George Lucas specifically requested that the CinemaScope version of the fanfare be used for the opening titles of Star Wars (1977). Additionally, the film's main theme was composed by John Williams in the same key as the fanfare (B♭ major), serving as an extension to it of sorts. In 1981, the logo was slightly altered with the re-straightening of the "0" in "20th".

In 1994, after a few failed attempts, Fox in-house television producer Kevin Burns was hired to produce a new logo for the company, this time using the then-new process of computer-generated imagery (CGI) adding more detail and animation, with the longer 21-second Fox fanfare arranged by David Newman used as the underscore.

In 2009, an updated logo created by Blue Sky Studios debuted with the release of Avatar.

On January 17, 2020, it was reported that Disney had begun to phase out the "Fox" name from the studio's branding as it is no longer tied to the current Fox Corporation, with 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures respectively renamed to 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures. Branding elements associated with the studio, including the searchlights, monolith, and fanfare, will remain in use. The first film that carries the new 20th Century Studios name is The Call of the Wild (coincidentally the original film adaptation was the original Twentieth Century Pictures' final movie before its merger with Fox Film).

For the 20th Century Studios logo, its print logo debuted on a movie poster of The New Mutants while the on-screen logo debuted in a television advertisement for and the full version debuted on February 21, 2020 with the film The Call of the Wild.

The 20th Century Studios logo was animated by Picturemill, based on Blue Sky Studios' animation.

Gallery

1935-1968

1953-1987

1956-1967

1981-1994

1994-2010

2009-2020

2020-