Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, with hyphen, from 1935 to 1985), also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox, is one of the six major American film studios A major film studio is a movie production and distribution company that releases a substantial number of films annually and consistently commands a significant share of box-office revenues in a given market. In the North American, Western, and global markets, the major film studios, often simply known as the majors, are commonly regarded as the as of 2010^[update]. Located in the Century City Century City is a 176-acre commercial and residential district on the West Side of the City of Los Angeles. It is bounded by Westwood on the west, Rancho Park on the southwest, Cheviot Hills and Beverlywood on the southeast, and the city of Beverly Hills on the northeast. Its major thoroughfares are Santa Monica, Olympic, and Pico Boulevards (its area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together entirely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. The area's "Platinum Triangle" of affluent neighborhoods is formed by Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Bel, the studio is a subsidiary of News Corporation News Corporation , often abbreviated to News Corp., is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009 . The company's Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder is Rupert Murdoch, the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-born American media magnate and the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of News Corporation.

The company was founded on May 31, 1935,^[1] as the result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation , also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox, is one of the six major American film studios. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio is a subsidiary of News Corporation, the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch. The company was founded on, founded by William Fox William Fox was a pioneering American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s. Although Fox sold his interest in these companies in a 1936 bankruptcy settlement, his name lives on as the namesake of the FOX Television Network and the 20th Century Fox film studio. He in 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation , also known as 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000 Pictures, or simply Fox, is one of the six major American film studios. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio is a subsidiary of News Corporation, the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch. The company was, founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director, and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors (the length of his career being rivalled only by that of Adolph Zukor), Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz William Goetz was an American Hollywood film producer and studio executive.

20th Century Fox's most popular movie franchises include Star Wars Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, spawning two sequels, released at three-year intervals. Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy's final film, the first in, Avatar Avatar is a 2009 American science fiction epic film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang. The film is set in the year 2154, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star, The Simpsons The Simpsons is an American animated television series created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a working-class American lifestyle epitomized by its eponymous family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional city of Springfield, and lampoons, King of the Hill King of the Hill is an American animated series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997 to September 13, 2009 on Fox. It centers on the Hills, a small-town Methodist family in the fictional town of Arlen, Texas. It attempts to retain a realistic approach, seeking humor in the conventional and mundane aspects of, Family Guy Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian. The show uses frequent cutaway gags, often in the form of, Ice Age, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks Alvin and the Chipmunks is a 2007 American live-action/CGI holiday comedy and musical film starring Jason Lee, David Cross, Cameron Richardson, Jane Lynch and the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney, X-Men The X-Men film series is a series of superhero films based on the fictional Marvel Comics team of the same name. The films star an ensemble cast, focusing on Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, as he is drawn into the conflict between Professor Xavier and Magneto, who have opposing views on humanity's relationship with mutants: Xavier believes humanity and, Die Hard The Die Hard series is a tetralogy of action films beginning with Die Hard in 1988. All four films are centered around the character of John McClane , a New York City detective who finds himself fighting a group of terrorists in each episode. There are also several video games based on the films, as well as a comic book series released in August, Alien The Alien film series is a science fiction horror film franchise, focusing on Lieutenant Ellen Ripley and her battle with an extraterrestrial lifeform, commonly referred as "the Alien". Produced by 20th Century Fox, the series started with the 1979 film Alien, which led to three movie sequels, plus numerous books, comics and video game, Speed, Revenge of the Nerds Revenge of the Nerds is a 1984 American comedy film satirizing social life on a college campus. The film stars Robert Carradine and Anthony Edwards, with Curtis Armstrong, Ted McGinley, Julia Montgomery, Brian Tochi, Larry B. Scott, John Goodman, and Donald Gibb. The film was directed by Jeff Kanew, Office Space Office Space is a 1999 American comedy film written and directed by Mike Judge. It satirizes work life in a typical 1990s software company, focusing on a handful of individuals who are fed up with their jobs. The film's sympathetic portrayal of ordinary IT workers garnered it a cult following among those in that profession, but the film also, Planet of the Apes, Home Alone Home Alone is a series of films that was based on the adventures of a boy named Kevin McAllister . The term usually refers to the first film in the series, which became the third highest grossing film at the time (1990), making a major star of lead actor Macaulay Culkin, Night at the Museum Night at the Museum is a 2006 adventure-comedy film based on the 1993 children's book with the same name by Milan Trenc. It follows a divorced father trying to settle down, impress his son, and find his destiny. He applies for a job as a night watchman at New York City's American Museum of Natural History and subsequently discovers that the, Predator The Predator film series is a science fiction horror film franchise. Produced by 20th Century Fox, the series started in 1987 with the film Predator, which led to a sequel and novel, comic book and video game spin-offs and The Chronicles of Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of epic fantasy films from Walden Media based on the series of novels, The Chronicles of Narnia written by C. S. Lewis in the 1950s. The first installment, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was released on December 9, 2005, while the second, Prince Caspian, was released on May 16, 2008; these first two (which was previously distributed by Walt Disney Pictures Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studio Entertainment and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney Studios, acquires and produces output that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures banners. Their most). Some of the most famous actors to come out of this studio were Shirley Temple Shirley Temple, or Shirley Jane Temple is a former American film and television actress, autobiographer, and public servant. She began her screen career in 1932 at the age of three, and, in 1934, skyrocketed to superstardom in Bright Eyes, a feature film designed specifically for her talents. She received a special Academy Award in February 1935,, who was 20th Century Fox's first movie star, Betty Grable Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the Life magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World". Grable was particularly noted for having the most beautiful legs in Hollywood and studio publicity widely dispersed photos featuring them. Hosiery specialists, Gene Tierney Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best-remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura (1944) and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Other notable roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in Heaven Can, Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe , born Norma Jeane Mortenson, but baptized Norma Jeane Baker, was an American actress, singer and model. After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946. Her early film appearances were minor, but her performances in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve ( and Jayne Mansfield Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both on Broadway and in Hollywood. One of the leading blonde sex symbols of the 1950s, Mansfield starred in several popular Hollywood films that emphasized her platinum-blonde hair, hourglass figure and cleavage-revealing costumes.

(References to "Fox" below refer to William Fox or Fox Film Corporation until 1935 and shortly afterwards, and to Twentieth Century-Fox or Twentieth Century Fox afterwards.)

Their most commercially successful production partners in later years has been 1492 Pictures 1492 Pictures is an American film production company founded by director Chris Columbus in 1995. The name is a play on Columbus's more famous namesake, Christopher Columbus, Lightstorm Entertainment, Davis Entertainment, Walden Media Walden Media is a children's film production and publishing company best known as the producers of The Chronicles of Narnia film series. Its films are based on notable classic or award-winning children's literature, compelling biographies or historical events, documentaries and some original screenplays, Regency Enterprises, Blue Sky Studios Blue Sky Studios is a CGI-animation studio which specializes in photo-realistic, high-resolution, computer-generated character animation and rendering. In addition to their feature-length animated films, including Ice Age , Robots (2005), and Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Blue Sky has worked on many high-profile movies, primarily in the, Troublemaker Studios, Marvel Studios Marvel Studios is an American television and motion picture studio based in Manhattan Beach, California and Spyglass Entertainment Spyglass Entertainment is an American film and television production company, co-founded by Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum in 1998. The studio was founded with an investment from European media conglomerates Kirch Group and Mediaset, and a five-year distribution deal with The Walt Disney Company. It is currently owned by Cerberus Capital.

History

Fox Film Corporation

The Fox Film Corporation was formed in 1915 by the theater "chain" pioneer William Fox William Fox was a pioneering American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s. Although Fox sold his interest in these companies in a 1936 bankruptcy settlement, his name lives on as the namesake of the FOX Television Network and the 20th Century Fox film studio. He, who formed Fox Film Corporation by merging two companies A corporation is an institution that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business he had established in 1913: Greater New York Film Rental, a distribution firm, which was part of the Independents An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced mostly outside of a major film studio. The term also refers to art films which differ markedly from most mass marketed films. In addition to being produced by independent production companies, independent films are often produced and/or distributed by subsidiaries of major studios. In; and Fox (or Box, depending on the source) Office Attractions Company, a production company. This merging of a distribution company and a production company was an early example of vertical integration In microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. It is contrasted with. Only a year before, the latter company had distributed Winsor McCay A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades. His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which ran from 1905-1914 & 1924-1927, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur,'s groundbreaking cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 short animated film by Winsor McCay. Although not the first animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality. The appearance of a true character distinguished it from earlier animated "trick films", such as those of Blackton and Cohl, and.

Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary. The company's first film studios were set up in Fort Lee, New Jersey Fort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 35,461. Located atop the Hudson Palisades, the borough is the western terminus of the George Washington Bridge. Named for the site of an early American Revolution military encampment, it later became the birthplace of, but in 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel to Hollywood to oversee the studio's West Coast The West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon and Washington.[citation needed] The United States Census Bureau groups the five states of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii together as the Pacific region production facilities where a more hospitable and cost-effective climate existed for film making. Fox had purchased the Edendale studio of the failing Selig Polyscope Company, which had been making movies in Los Angeles since 1909 and was the first motion picture studio in the city.

With the introduction of sound technologies, Fox moved to acquire the rights to a sound-on-film Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track, and may record the signal either optically or process. In the years 1925–26, Fox purchased the rights to the work of Freeman Harrison Owens, the U.S. rights to the Tri-Ergon system invented by three German inventors, and the work of Theodore Case. This resulted in the Movietone sound system later known as "Fox Movietone". Later that year, the company began offering films with a music-and-effects track, and the following year Fox began the weekly Fox Movietone News feature, which ran until 1963. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired 300 acres (1.2 km²) in the open country west of Beverly Hills and built "Movietone City", the best-equipped studio of its time.

When rival Marcus Loew Marcus Loew was an American business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loews Theatres and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) died in 1927, Fox offered to buy the Loew family's holdings. Loew's Inc. controlled more than 200 theaters as well as the MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., or MGM, is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures studio (whose films are currently distributed internationally by Fox). When the family agreed to the sale, the merger of Fox and Loew's Inc. was announced in 1929. But MGM studio-boss Louis B. Mayer Louis Burt Mayer was a Russian-born American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in its golden years. Known always as Louis B. Mayer and often simply as "L.B.", he believed in wholesome entertainment and went to great lengths so that MGM had "more stars, not included in the deal, fought back. Using political connections, Mayer called on the Justice Department The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries's anti-trust Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, are laws that promote or maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct unit to block the merger. Fortunately for Mayer, Fox was badly injured in a car crash in the summer of 1929, and by the time he recovered he had lost most of his fortune in the fall 1929 stock market crash, putting an end to the Loew's merger.

Over-extended and close to bankruptcy, Fox was stripped of his empire and ended up in jail. Fox Film, with more than 500 theatres, was placed in receivership. A bank-mandated reorganization propped the company up for a time, but it was clear a merger was the only way Fox Film could survive. Under the new president Sidney Kent, the new owners began negotiating with the upstart but powerful independent Twentieth Century Pictures in the early spring of 1935.

Twentieth Century Pictures

Twentieth Century Pictures was an independent Hollywood motion picture production company created in 1933 by Joseph Schenck, the former president of United Artists, Darryl F. Zanuck from Warner Brothers, William Goetz from Fox Films, and Raymond Griffith. Financial backing came from Schenck's older brother Nicholas Schenck and the father-in-law of Goetz, Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM Studios. Company product was distributed by United Artists (UA), and was filmed at various studios.

Schenck was President of 20th Century while Zanuck was named Vice President in Charge of Production and Goetz served as vice-president. Successful from the very beginning, their 1934 production, The House of Rothschild was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1935, they produced the classic film Les Misérables, from Victor Hugo's novel, which was also nominated for Best Picture. Legend has it that the new independent took a detour straight into the major studio camp when Zanuck became outraged by United Artists' board including UA's co-founder Mary Pickford's refusal to reward Twentieth Century with UA stock fearing it would have diluted another UA stockholder and co-founder D.W. Griffith. Schenck, who had been a UA stockholder for over ten years, resigned from United Artists in protest of the shoddy treatment of Twentieth Century, and Zanuck began discussions with other distributors which led to talks with the floundering giant, Fox.

For a list of films produced by Twentieth Century Pictures, see List of 20th Century Pictures films.

Twentieth Century/Fox merger

Joe Schenck and Fox management agreed to a merger; Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox-West Coast theaters, helped in the merger (and later became president of the new company). Although it was still much smaller than Fox, Twentieth Century was the senior partner in the merger. At first, it was expected that the new company would be called "Fox-Twentieth Century." However, 20th Century brought more to bargaining table besides Schenck and Zanuck. It was profitable and have more talent than Fox, the new company was called The Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, and began trading on May 31, 1935; the hyphen was dropped in 1985. Schenck became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, while Kent remained as President. Zanuck became Vice President in Charge of Production, replacing Fox's longtime production chief Winfield Sheehan.

For many years, 20th Century-Fox claimed to have been founded in 1915, the year Fox Film Corporation was founded. However, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding date, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915.

Aside from the theater chain and a first-rate studio lot, Zanuck and Schenck felt there wasn't much else to Fox. The studio's biggest star, Will Rogers, died in a plane crash weeks after the merger. Its leading female star, Janet Gaynor, was fading in popularity. Promising leading men James Dunn and Spencer Tracy had been dropped because of heavy drinking. Zanuck quickly signed young actors who would carry Twentieth Century-Fox for years: Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Sonja Henie, and Betty Grable. Also on the Fox payroll he found two players who he built up into the studio's leading assets, Alice Faye and seven-year-old Shirley Temple. Favoring popular biographies and musicals, Zanuck built Fox back to profitability. Thanks to record attendance during World War II, Fox overtook RKO and mighty MGM to become the third most profitable studio. While Zanuck went off for eighteen months' war service, junior partner William Goetz kept profits high by emphasizing light entertainment. The studio's—indeed the industry's—biggest star was creamy blonde Betty Grable.

In 1942 Spyros Skouras succeeded Schenck as president of the studio. Together with Zanuck, who returned in 1943, they intended to make Fox's output more serious-minded. During the next few years, with pictures like The Razor's Edge, Wilson, Gentleman's Agreement, The Snake Pit, Boomerang, and Pinky, Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books Ben Ames Williams' Leave Her to Heaven (1945) staring Gene Tierney which was the highest-grossing Fox film of the 1940s. Fox also produced Broadway musicals, including the Rodgers and Hammerstein films, beginning with the musical version of State Fair in 1945, and continuing years later with Carousel in 1956, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. They also distributed, but did not make, the CinemaScope version of Oklahoma! and the 1958 film version of South Pacific.

After the war and with the advent of television audiences drifted away, Twentieth Century-Fox held on to its theaters until a court-mandated divorce; they were spun off as Fox National Theaters in 1953. That year, with attendance at half the 1946 level, Twentieth Century-Fox gambled on an unproven gimmick. Noting that the two movie sensations of 1952 had been Cinerama, which required three projectors to fill a giant curved screen, and "Natural Vision" 3D, which got its effects of depth by requiring the use of polarized glasses, Fox mortgaged its studio to buy rights to a French anamorphic projection system which gave a slight illusion of depth without glasses. President Spyros Skouras struck a deal with the inventor Henri Chrétien, leaving the other filmstudios empty-handed, and in 1953 introduced CinemaScope in the studio's ground-breaking feature film The Robe.

The success of The Robe was so massive that in February 1953 Zanuck announced that henceforth all Fox pictures would be made in CinemaScope. To convince theater owners to install this new process, Fox agreed to help pay conversion costs (about $25,000 per screen); and to ensure enough product, Fox gave access to CinemaScope to any rival studio choosing to use it. Seeing the box-office for the first two CinemaScope features, The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire, Warner Bros., MGM, Universal Pictures (then known as Universal-International), Columbia Pictures and Disney quickly adopted the process.

CinemaScope brought a brief up-turn in attendance, but by 1956 the numbers again began to slide. That year Darryl Zanuck announced his resignation as head of production. Officially attributed to burn-out, rumors persisted that his wife had threatened divorce (in community-property California) after discovering Zanuck's affair with actress Bella Darvi. Zanuck moved to Paris, setting up as an independent producer; he did not set foot in California again for fifteen years.

Production and financial problems

His successor, producer Buddy Adler, died a year later. President Spyros Skouras brought in a series of production executives, but none had Zanuck's success. By the early 1960s Fox was in trouble. A remake of Theda Bara's Cleopatra had begun in 1959 with Joan Collins in the lead. As a publicity gimmick, producer Walter Wanger offered one million dollars to Elizabeth Taylor if she would star; she accepted, and costs for Cleopatra began to escalate, aggravated by Richard Burton's on-set romance with Taylor and surrounding media frenzy.

Meanwhile, another remake — of the 1940 Cary Grant hit My Favorite Wife — was rushed into production in an attempt to turn over a quick profit to help keep Fox afloat. The romantic comedy, titled Something's Got to Give — pairing Marilyn Monroe, Fox's most bankable star of the 1950s with Dean Martin, and director (George Cukor) — the troubled Monroe caused delays on a daily basis and it quickly descended into a costly debacle. As Cleopatra's budget passed the ten-million dollar mark, Fox sold its back lot (now the site of Century City) to Alcoa in 1961 to raise cash. After several months of very little progress, Marilyn Monroe was fired from Something's Got to Give, although somewhat controversially Elizabeth Taylor's highly disruptive reign on the Cleopatra set continued unchallenged.

With few pictures on the schedule, Skouras wanted to rush Zanuck's big-budget war epic The Longest Day, a highly accurate account of the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, with a huge international cast, into release as another source of quick cash. This offended Zanuck, still Fox's largest shareholder, for whom The Longest Day was a labor of love that he had dearly wanted to produce for years. After it became clear that Something's Got to Give would not be able to progress without Monroe in the lead (Martin had refused to work with anyone else), Skouras finally decided that something had to give and re-signed her. But days before filming was due to resume, she was found dead at her Los Angeles home and the unfinished scenes from Something's Got to Give were shelved for nearly 40 years. Rather than being rushed into release as if it were a B-picture, The Longest Day was lovingly and carefully produced under Zanuck's supervision. It was finally released at a length of three hours, and went on to be recognized as one of the great World War II films.

At the next board meeting, Zanuck spoke for eight hours, convincing directors that Skouras was mismanaging the company and that he was the only possible successor. Zanuck was installed as chairman, and then named his son Richard Zanuck as president. This new management group seized Cleopatra and rushed it to completion, shut down the studio, laid off the entire staff to save money, axed the long-running Movietone Newsreel and made a series of cheap, popular pictures that restored Fox as a major studio. The biggest boost to the studio's fortunes came from the tremendous success of The Sound of Music (1965), an expensive and handsomely produced adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, which became one of the all-time greatest box office hits.

Fox also had two big science-fiction hits in the 1960s: Fantastic Voyage (which introduced Racquel Welch to movie audiences) in 1966, and the original Planet of the Apes, starring Charlton Heston, in 1968.

Zanuck stayed on as chairman until 1971 but there were several expensive flops in his last years, resulting in Fox posting losses from 1969 to 1971. Following his removal, and after an uncertain period, new management brought Fox back to health. Under president Dennis Stanfill and production head Alan Ladd, Jr., Fox films connected with modern audiences. Stanfill used the profits to acquire resort properties, soft-drink bottlers, Australian theaters, and other properties in an attempt to diversify enough to offset the boom-or-bust cycle of picture-making. In 1977 Fox's success reached new heights and produced the most profitable film made up to that time, Star Wars.^[2]

Rupert Murdoch

With financial stability came new owners, and in 1978 control passed to the investors Marc Rich and Marvin Davis. By 1985 Rich had fled the U.S. after evading $100 million in U.S. income taxes, and Davis sold Rich's half of Fox to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Six months later Davis sold his half of Fox, giving News Corp complete control. To run the studio, Murdoch hired Barry Diller from Paramount. Diller brought with him a plan which Paramount's board had refused: a studio-backed, fourth television-network financed by advertising.

To gain FCC approval of Fox's purchase of Metromedia's television holdings, once the stations of the old DuMont network, Murdoch had to become a US citizen. He did so in 1985 (the same year 20th Century Fox dropped the hyphen from its name), and in 1986 the new Fox Broadcasting Company took to the air. Over the next 20-odd years the network and owned-stations group expanded to become extremely profitable for News Corp.

Since January 2000 this company has been the international distributor for MGM/UA releases, until as of 2005^[update],when Sony bought MGM the worldwide video distributor for the MGM/UA library. In the 1980s Fox— through a joint venture with CBS, called CBS/Fox Video—had distributed certain UA films on video, thus UA has come full circle by switching to Fox for video distribution. Fox also makes money distributing movies for small independent film companies.

In 2008 Fox announced an Asian subsidiary, Fox STAR Studios, a joint venture with STAR TV, also owned by News Corporation. It was reported that Fox STAR would start by producing films for the Bollywood market, then expand to several Asian markets.^[3]

Television

20th Television is Fox's television syndication division. 20th Century Fox Television is the studio's television production division.

Music

Fox Music is Fox's music arm since 2000. It encompasses music publishing and licensing businesses, dealing primarily with Fox Entertainment Group television and film soundtracks.

Prior to Fox Music, 20th Century Records was its music arm from 1958 to 1982.

Logo and fanfare

The distinctive Art Deco 20th Century Fox logo, designed by famed landscape artist Emil Kosa, Jr., originated as the 20th Century Pictures logo, with the name "Fox" substituted for "Pictures, Inc." in 1935. The logo was originally created as a painting on several layers of glass and animated frame-by-frame. It had very little animation—just a sideline view of the tower with searchlights, some moving and some non-moving. Over the years the logo was modified several times. In 1953, Rocky Longo, an artist at Pacific Title, was hired to recreate the original design for the new CinemaScope process. In order to give the rather static design the required "width", Longo tilted the "0" in 20th—an idiosyncratic element which became part of the design for more than two decades. In 1981, after Longo repainted the eight-layered glass panels (and straightened the "0"), his revised logo became the official trademark.

In 1994, after a few false starts and expensive failed attempts (which even included trying to film the familiar monument as an actual three-dimensional model), Fox in-house television producer Kevin Burns was hired to produce an all-new, standardized logo—this time using the new process of CGI. With the help of graphics producer Steve Soffer and his company Studio Productions (which had recently given face-lifts to the Paramount and Universal logos), Burns directed that the new logo contain more detail and animation, so that the longer (21 second) Fox fanfare with the "CinemaScope extension" could be used as the underscore. This required a virtual Los Angeles City to be designed around the monument—one in which buildings, moving cars and street lights can be briefly glimpsed. In the background can be seen the famous Hollywood sign, which would give the monument an actual location (approximating Fox's actual address in Century City). One final touch was the addition of store front signs—each one bearing the name of Fox executives who were at the studio at the time. One of the signs reads, "Murdoch's Department Store"; another says "Chernin's" and a third reads: "Burns Tri-City Alarm" (an homage to Burns' late father who owned a burglar and fire alarm company in Upstate New York). The 1994 CGI logo was also the first time that Twentieth Century Fox was recognized as "A News Corporation Company" in the logo, although it had already been owned by News Corp. for eight years. In 2009, an updated version was used to coincide with 20th Century Fox's 75th anniversary and made its official debut with Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.^[4]

The Fox fanfare was originally composed in 1933 by Alfred Newman, who became head of Twentieth Century-Fox's music department from 1940 until the 1960s. It was re-recorded in 1935 when 20th Century Fox was officially established.

In 1953 an extended version was created for CinemaScope films, first used on the film How to Marry a Millionaire, released in the same year. (The Robe, the first film released in CinemaScope, used the sound of a choir singing over the logo, instead of the regular fanfare.)

By the 1970s the Fox fanfare was only being used sporadically in films. George Lucas enjoyed the Alfred Newman music so much that he insisted it be used for Star Wars (1977), which features the CinemaScope version. Composer John Williams composed the Star Wars main theme in the same key (B♭ major) as the Fox fanfare as an extension to Newman's score. In 1980 Williams conducted a new version of the fanfare for The Empire Strikes Back. Williams' recording of the Fox fanfare has been used in every Star Wars film since.

The Fox fanfare was reorchestrated in 1981, as Longo's revised logo was being introduced.

As the CGI logo was being prepared to premiere at the beginning of James Cameron's True Lies (1994), Burns asked composer Bruce Broughton for a new version of the familiar fanfare. In 1997 Alfred's son, composer David Newman, recorded the new version of the fanfare in Anastasia (1997); it is still in use as of 2010^[update].

Parodies of the fanfare have appeared at the start of the films The Cannonball Run (cars drive around the logo), White Men Can't Jump (rap version of the fanfare), The Day After Tomorrow (thunderstorm on the set), Live Free or Die Hard (where the spotlights go out as a result of a terrorist-controlled power outage), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (piano-rock version of the fanfare), The Simpsons Movie (Ralph Wiggum "sings along" with the fanfare; in trailers and commercials, the "0" in the tower is replaced by a pink, half-bitten doughnut of the type Homer eats), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (with snow and volcanoes covering the logo, but the regular 20th Century Fox logo was shown on the movie's DVD and Blu-rays release instead) and Minority Report (where the logo, alongside its DreamWorks counterpart, appears immersed in water, similar to the film's "precog" characters). In the X-Men films of the 2000s, the "X" in "Fox" remains ghosted on the screen as the scene fades out. In Moulin Rouge! the logo appears on a stage behind a red curtain with a conductor directing the fanfare. In the 2003 production of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen the logo appears as a huge unlit monument dominating the nighttime London skyline. In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the studio placed a cartoon version of the 20th Century Fox structure on the main studio logo.

At the end of Fox's Futurama, set in the 30th and 31st centuries, the logo is shown with the words "30th Century Fox".

As a surprise twist, the opening fanfare for Alien³ has the music "freeze" on the penultimate melody tone, and then adds wailing French horns and bending strings, before continuing with a crash into the opening titles, thus setting the dark mood for the movie.

Also on The Simpsons: Season 10 DVD, each disc's opening shows Bart Simpson running around the logo while being chased by the squeaky-voiced teenager.

Fox Searchlight Pictures, Foxstar Productions, and Fox Studios Australia are just a few of the other corporate entities that have used variations on the original 1933 design.

In 20th Century Fox's recent films (like Avatar, The A-Team & Knight and Day) in Mid 2010, the logo was updated by the company's subsidiary Blue Sky Studios, including a special Stereoscopic 3D version. It also produced a logo showing "Celebrating 75 Years" (with those focus lights used in 20th Century Fox Logo)over its logo celebrating 75 years in the movie industry.

The Fox fanfare was sampled for the remix of rapper Busta Rhymes's song, "Stop The Party", after Ghostface Killah's verse.

In the beginning of live action Woody Woodpecker movie along with Universal, it uses the 1994 logo. When the fanfare ends, the reused classic 1947 cartoon Woody Woodpecker pops out of the "0" saying in the late Mel Blanc's voice saying "Guess Who?" and laughs and the logo ends.

See also

List of 20th Century Fox films

• Related companies:
  • 20th Century Fox Television
  • 20th Century Fox Animation
  • Fox Atomic
  • Fox Broadcasting Company
  • Fox Entertainment Group
  • Fox Interactive
  • 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
  • Fox Searchlight Pictures
  • Fox 21
  • Foxtel – Australian Cable TV operator

• Related products:
  • 20th Century Fox Studio Classics – A premium DVD collection
  • Fox Family Fun – A family DVD collection

• Other:
  • Blu-ray Disc Association
  • List of Hollywood movie studios
  • CinemaScope
  • Backlot

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "20th Century Fox: Chronology". http://www.thestudiotour.com/fox/chronology.shtml. Retrieved February 20, 2010.
2. ^ http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9073943/Twentieth-Century-Fox-Film-Corporation
3. ^ Fox opens Asian studio
4. ^ Is Fox really 75 this year? Somewhere, the fantastic Mr. (William) Fox begs to differ

Bibliography

• Custen, George F., Twentieth Century's Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the Culture of Hollywood; New York: BasicBooks, 1997; ISBN 0-465-07619-X

External links

• FoxMovies.com
• 20th Century Fox Studios Official Website
• 20th Century Fox Animation at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• 20th Century Fox at the Internet Movie Database
• 20th Century Fox From Box Office Mojo

Categories: 20th Century Fox | Academy Honorary Award recipients | Companies based in Los Angeles, California | Companies established in 1935 | Entertainment companies of the United States | Film production companies of the United States | Film distributors | American film studios | Fox Entertainment Group | News Corporation subsidiaries

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