20th Century Studios

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20th Century Studios
Still the best entertainment in the century since 1935.
Formerly: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (1935–1985)
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (1985–2020)
Type: Subsidiary
Founded: May 31, 1935; 89 years ago
Industry: Film
Founder(s): Joseph M. Schenck
Darryl F. Zanuck
William Fox
Spyros Skouras
Headquarters: Fox Studio Lot Building 88, 10201 West Pico Boulevard, Century City, Los Angeles, California, United States
Key people: David Greenbaum (president)
Steve Asbell (president, production)
Owner: News Corporation (1985–2013)
21st Century Fox (2013–2019)
The Walt Disney Company (2019–present)
Parent: Fox Entertainment Group (1990–2019)
The Walt Disney Studios (2019–present)
Divisions: 20th Century Animation
20th Century Family
20th Century Games
20th Century Comics
Website: www.20thcenturystudios.com

20th Century Studios (formally known as 20th Century 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 its namesake studio 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.

Why They Are Truly a Century of Entertainment

  1. The studio was created by a famous merger between Twentieth Century Pictures, Inc. and Fox Film Corporation on May 31st,1935, officially starting the studio in the first place.
    • If you take Fox Film Corporation and 20th Century Pictures, the two studios that merged to form 20th Century Fox into consideration, then Gertie the Dinosaur was the first film to be made by the studio.
  2. The first film released by the studio was Dante's Inferno and the first film to be produced by the studio was Metropolitan, which started it all.
  3. They made and released so many great, memorable, and amazing movies such as:
    • Bright Eyes
    • Curly Top
    • Heidi
    • Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
    • The Blue Bird (which along with Young People was one of Shirley Temple's last films for Fox before her contract expired)
    • The Grapes of Wrath
    • How Green Was My Valley
    • Miracle on 34th Street (also the 1994 remake by John Hughes)
    • Twelve O' Clock High
    • Laura
    • Jesse James
    • The Little Princess
    • The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
    • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
    • The Seven Year Itch
    • The Robe
    • The Fly (which spawned a 1986 remake and a 1959 sequel, Return of The Fly)
    • How To Marry A Millionaire
    • The Day The Earth Stood Still
    • The King and I
    • South Pacific
    • All About Eve
    • Cleopatra
    • The Sound of Music
    • Doctor Dolittle (1967)
      • Dr. Dolittle (1998) (and it's 2001 sequel)
    • Hello Dolly!
    • Patton
    • M*A*S*H (which inspired a hit television series of the same name)
    • The Bible: In The Beginning
    • Valley of The Dolls
    • Planet of the Apes (1968)
      • Rise of The Planet of The Apes
      • Dawn of The Planet of The Apes
      • War of The Planet of The Apes
    • Fantastic Voyage
    • Young Frankenstein
    • The Rocky Horror Picture Show
    • The Omen (which spawned three sequels in 1978, 1981, and a Made for TV one in 1991)
    • Alien
    • the first six Star Wars films (pre-Force Awakens)
    • Nine to Five
    • History of The World, Part I (Which got a sequel miniseries on Hulu called "History of The World, Part II" in 2023)
    • The Poseidon Adventure
    • Norma Rae
    • Big
    • Predator
    • Big Trouble In Little China
    • Mr. Mom (produced by Silkwood Productions and currently owned by Amazon through MGM)
    • Romancing The Stone
    • The Princess Bride
    • Die Hard
    • Cocoon
    • Revenge of The Nerds
    • Commando
    • Highlander (Produced by Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment)
    • Weekend At Bernie's (produced by Gladden Entertainment)
    • Home Alone
    • Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
    • Edward Scissorhands
    • White Men Can't Jump
    • Hot Shots!
    • Ferngully: The Last Rainforest
    • The Sandlot
    • Speed
    • True Lies
    • Mrs. Doubtfire
    • Independence Day
    • Anastasia
    • Romeo + Juliet
    • Titanic
    • There's Something About Mary
    • Lake Placid
    • Cast Away
    • Titan A.E.
    • X-Men
    • X2
    • X-Men: First Class
    • X-Men: Days of Future Past
    • The Wolverine
    • Logan
    • Moulin Rouge
    • Ice Age
    • Daredevil
    • The Day After Tomorrow
    • Mr. and Mrs. Smith
    • Walk The Line
    • Napoleon Dynamite
    • Little Miss Sunshine
    • Aquamarine
    • The Devil Wears Prada
    • Robots
    • Borat
    • the Night At The Museum trilogy
    • The Simpsons Movie
    • Dr. Suess' Horton Hears A Who
    • Nim's Island
    • Marley & Me
    • Fantastic Mr. Fox
    • Avatar
    • Rio
    • Jennifer's Body
    • Lincoln
    • Prometheus
    • The Diary of a Wimpy Kid trilogy
    • Life of Pi
    • Hitchcock
    • Epic
    • Birdman
    • The Maze Runner
    • The Book of Life
    • Kingsman: The Secret Service
    • The Revenant
    • The Martian
    • The Deadpool film duology.
    • The Peanuts Movie
    • Murder on The Orient Express (2017)
    • The Greatest Showman
    • Ferdinand
    • Isle of Dogs
    • Bohemian Rhapsody
    • Alita: Battle Angel
    • Spies In Disguise (Which along with Ice Age's Scrat Tales (2022) ended Blue Sky Studios on a high note, along with it's last film, Nimona, being finished and completed at Netflix 4 years later)
    • Ford V. Ferrari
    • Tolkien
    • Jojo Rabbit
    • The Call of The Wild (2020)
    • Ron's Gone Wrong
    • Free Guy
    • Nomadland
    • The French Dispatch
    • West Side Story (2021 remake of the 1961 film of the same name)
    • Nightmare Alley (2021 remake of the 1947 film of the same name)
    • Vacation Friends
    • Prey
    • The Bob's Burgers Movie
    • The Boogeyman
    • The Menu
    • A Haunting in Venice
    • Avatar: The Way of Water
    • The First Omen
    • Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes
    • Hellraiser (2022 Reboot of the Hellraiser franchise)
    • The Creator
    • Quiz Lady
    • Darby and The Dead
    • Rosaline
  4. Before and after the Disney merger in 2019, 20th Century has had so many great divisions and units:
    • Fox Searchlight Pictures (later known as Searchlight Pictures), which produces art-house and specialty films
    • Blue Sky Studios, which produced many iconic, memorable, and great computer-generated films for the studio such as Ice Age, Rio, The Peanuts Movie, Spies In Disguise, and Robots. Also, the studio's final film, Nimona was eventually rescued, completed, and released on Netflix in 2023 after the studio's shutdown on April 2021, which ended the studio on a high note.
    • FX Networks, a company owning a series of networks including the FX channel (which airs movies and television shows and produced many hit TV series such as Archer, What We Do In The Shadows, The Bear, American Horror Story, Fargo, and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia), the FXM Channel (which showcase many classic movies from 20th Century-Fox's film library from 1930's-1990's, as well as other film studios), and FXX (with its programming focusing on original and acquired comedy series and feature films for a primary demographic of men ages 18–34)
    • Fox Children's Entertainment (later known as Fox Kids Worldwide), which produced and distributed hit kid's shows for Fox Network's Fox Kids block, such as Peter Pan and The Pirates, Eek The Cat, Attack of The Killer Tomatoes (1990), Bobby's World, The Tick, Goosebumps, Digimon: Digital Monsters, and Pigs Next Door, which is now owned by Disney.
    • 20th Television (previously known as 20th Century-Fox Television), which produces hit television shows.
    • 20th Television Animation (previously known as Fox Television Animation), which produced adult animated sitcoms for Fox, Hulu, and other networks.
    • Fox Animation Studios, a short-lived animation unit in Phoenix, Arizona started up by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman to produce animated films for the studio in 1994, it only produced three animated films so far: Anastasia (1997), Bartok The Magnificent (1999), and Titan A.E. (2000).
    • 20th Century Animation, a division and label of the studio which produced family and animated films under the Fox Family Films, Blue Sky Studios, and Fox Animation Studios names and other original animated films such as The Simpsons Movie, The Book of Life, and Ron's Gone Wrong.
    • Fox 2000 Pictures, a sister studio to Fox that produces indie films in mid-range releases that largely targeted underserved groups, which ran from 1994 to 2021.
    • Fox Star Studios (later known as Star Studios), which distributes many Indian films.
  5. Before producing animated feature films and animated TV sitcoms such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob's Burgers, they were the main distributor behind the classic Terrytoons cartoon shorts in the golden Age of Animation from the 1930s to early 1970's, in which helped make Terrytoons (now owned by Paramount Global) popular and big names in animation thanks to it's most popular characters such as Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Farmer Al Falfa, Gandy Goose and Sourpuss, Sidney The Elephant, Dippity Dawg, Dinky Duck, Lil' Roguefort, and other popular cartoon icons.
    • They were also the distributor behind several DreamWorks Animation films from 2013 to 2017 such as The Croods, Turbo, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, How To Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda 3, Trolls, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, and The Boss Baby.
  6. Fox did a good job working with Warner Bros. in 1974 with their project, The Towering Inferno, making it the first studio joint venture in history.
    • They also teamed up with Paramount to bring to life James Cameron's epic romance-disaster blockbuster epic, Titanic, which became the highest-grossing film of all of 1997 and won 11 Academy Awards.
  7. The Fox Broadcasting Company, which was launched in 1987, used to be its television network and was later separated and spun off into Fox Corporation following the 2019 Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox.
  8. The Art Deco logo and fanfare are amazing and realistic, even the 1994 and 2009 logos are the most impressive so far and the fanfare is well-orchestrated and epic.
    • The 2009 logo was animated by Blue Sky Studios themselves, and Flip Your Lid made a nice 1994 logo.
  9. Even despite being bought by Disney and has been renamed 20th Century Studios to avoid confusion with Fox Corporation, it continues to produce great films to this day.
    • They have thankfully cut ties with Fox News.
  10. Aside from feature films, they also produced and distributed many great and memorable TV shows, animated sitcoms, and miniseries such as
    • Batman (1966)
    • Lost In Space
    • M*A*S*H (1972-1983)
    • The Fall Guy
    • 21 Jump Street
    • Buffy The Vampire Slayer
    • Doogie Howser, M.D.
    • In Living Color
    • The Tracy Ullman Show (which introduced the world to The Simpsons and helped inspire and create the longest-running animated series in TV history)
    • Working Girl (based off the 1988 film of the same name)
    • The X-Files
    • The Simpsons (Seasons 1-11, 32-present)
    • King of The Hill
    • Buffy The Vampire Slayer
    • Ally McBeal
    • Dharma & Greg
    • The PJs
    • Futurama
    • Family Guy (Seasons 1-7)
    • Reba
    • It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
    • How I Met Your Mother
    • Glee
    • Modern Family
    • American Dad!
    • The Cleveland Show
    • Bob's Burgers
    • The Last Man on Earth
    • American Horror Story
    • The Orville
    • Duncanville
    • Solar Opposites
    • Central Park
    • The Great North
    • The Mysterious Benedict Society
    • Turner & Hooch (based on the 1989 film of the same name)
    • Abbott Elementary
    • How I Met Your Father
    • The Santa Clauses (based on the Disney film franchise of the same name)
    • History of The World, Part II
    • American Born Chinese
    • Percy Jackson and The Olympians (A major improvement over the Percy Jackson duology)
  11. Most of 20th Century Fox's video games they have produced and licensed are good, such as many games for the Atari 2600 in 1982-1983 (such as Bank Heist, The Yolk's On You, Deadly Duck, Worm War I, Fast Eddie, Beany Bopper, Turmoil), Croc: Legend of The Gobbos, The X-Files Game, several Simpsons video games (such as The Simpsons Cartoon Studio, Virtual Springfield, The Simpsons Game, The Simpsons: Hit and Run, and The Simpsons (1991 Arcade Game)), Aliens Vs. Predator, Futurama (video game), Independence Day (for PlayStation and Sega Saturn), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (for Xbox), Warped Kart Racers, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Planet of The Apes: Last Frontier.
  12. They pioneered the use of modern anamorphic widescreen in films by creating the CinemaScope widescreen process in 1953 and the first film released in that format was The Robe.
  13. They started and launched the careers of many iconic and legendary Hollywood stars such as Shirley Temple, Marylin Monroe, Gregory Peck, Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Betty Grable, Mitzi Gaynor, Janet Gaynor, Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Roddy McDowall, Jayne Mansfield, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, George Sanders, Sonja Henie, Natalie Wood, Anne Bancroft, Elvis Presley, and Raquel Welch.
    • They were also famous for having the first African-American star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which is Dorothy Dandridge for her breakout performance in Carmen Jones (1954).
    • Not only they were responsible for giving us one of the greatest animated series of all time, The Simpsons, but it became the longest-running animated series in history and one of the longest-running TV series ever made.
  14. While Disney's acquisition of the studio and it's assets, while being spun off from Fox Corporation (through it's acquisition of 21st Century Fox on March 20th, 2019) left a divisive taste and polarized reactions to everyone and a changing impact on Hollywood today, It did lead to some good and interesting things:
    1. This deal would benefit greatly one of Disney's properties Marvel Studios in which they helped incorporate the former Fox properties, the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the former receiving disappointing releases and especially the latter having a poor track record of film adaptations, leading to them giving the properties with revitalization with the upcoming film and reboot, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which will be released on July 25th, 2025 and a untitled X-Men reboot film that would come out in the film
    2. This also lead to the release of Deadpool and Wolverine on July 26th, 2024, which kept Deadpool R-rated and with Ryan Reynolds returning to the role of Deadpool and teaming up with Wolverine and really served as a conclusion to Fox's Marvel movies.
    3. It really inspired an Avatar-themed land in Disney's Animal Kingdom, called "The World of Pandora".
    4. Which they moved Family Guy to FX, FXX, and Freeform after 18 years of syndication on TBS and [adult swim], they managed to keep the first 8 seasons of the show in their original aspect ratio's, rather than cropping them to widescreen. Also, they thankfully made a deal with Paramount Global to bring Family Guy to a new syndication home on Comedy Central on August 24th, 2024, making up for leaving TBS and Adult Swim (and the show's run on [adult swim] ending on a sour note with the Season 12 episode,"Stewie is Enceinte").
    5. If Bob Iger remained CEO of Disney, he did see potential in Blue Sky Studios as seen in here and here. If he was still president, then Blue Sky Studios wouldn't shut down and may have worked on the projects they considered doing like Nimona (though Netflix now acquires the rights), Foster, Mutts, Spore, etc.
    6. Speaking of Blue Sky, They were was at least kind enough to release Blue Sky's last finished project, Ice Age: Scrat Tales, on Disney+ and had Nimona picked up and finished at Netflix.
    7. Because of that, they managed to secure the rights to Scrat.
    8. They retained back the unedited film rights of the original Star Wars sequel and original trilogies with the 20th Century-Fox logo restored back at the beginning.
    9. With Disney now owning The Simpsons (outside of using them to make the infamous boring promotional shorts on Disney+ to show how much they own now and their rights at Universal Studios set to expire in 2028), the chances of a second Simpsons movie seem higher than ever.
    10. Also, they listened to Simpsons fans' criticisms with the 16:9 cropped episodes of older Simpsons episodes from 1989-2009 when Disney+ came out and gave viewers the option to watch the 4:3 produced episodes in their original format or the widescreen/cropped version on May 30th, 2020. That does show Disney had seen full potential with The Simpsons in a good way there.

Bad Qualities

  1. It produced and released lots of bad, mediocre, okay, and terrible films such as:
  2. Aside from feature films, they also produced and distributed many bad, mediocre, okay and Terrible TV shows, animated sitcoms, and miniseries such as
    • Allen Gregory
    • The Cleveland Show (Season 1)
    • Napoleon Dynamite The Animated Series
    • Sit Down Shut Up
    • Bless The Harts
    • Bordertown
  3. Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox on March 20, 2019, marked a significant restructuring of the Hollywood landscape, reducing the "Big Six" studios to five. While the move was seen as a strategic effort to enhance Disney's content portfolio—especially for its Disney+ streaming service—it sparked mixed reactions from industry observers, fans, and critics. Supporters argued that the acquisition allowed Disney to consolidate blockbuster franchises, such as Avatar and the X-Men, and create a more unified platform for content delivery. However, detractors viewed it as a controversial horizontal merger that raised concerns about market consolidation and Disney's growing influence in the industry. Critics also noted the irony of Disney acquiring a studio like Fox, given Disney's history of handling mature content through past ventures like Touchstone Pictures (operational for 33 years) and Miramax Films (owned from 1993 to 2010, now under Paramount Global and BeIN Media Group). The merger led to significant changes within Fox's operations. Several projects in development, including Gambit, Mouse Guard, and Flash Gordon, were canceled, and Blue Sky Studios, the animation company behind Ice Age, was shut down in April 2021. While some speculated that the decision to close Blue Sky was driven by economic factors, others believed that under different leadership, the studio might have continued producing animated films under the 20th Century Studios banner. On the positive side, Disney preserved key elements of Fox's legacy, such as the iconic art-deco logo and fanfare (updated to reflect the studio’s new name, 20th Century Studios) and the historic studio headquarters at Fox Studios in Century City, California. The acquisition also opened opportunities for creative crossovers and content expansion, though its long-term impact on the industry remains a subject of debate.

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