20th Century Fox

Fox Plaza, the company headquarters.

Twentieth (20th) Century Fox Film Corporation is one of the major American movie studios, located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, California, USA, just west of Beverly Hills. The studio is a subsidiary of News Corporation, the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

History

The company is the result of a 1935 merger of two entities, Fox Film Corporation founded by William Fox in 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures, begun in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz. William Fox, a pioneer in creating the theater "chain," began producing films in 1914. In 1917 he introduced Theda Bara, one of the most popular screen actresses of the time. Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary. With the introduction of sound Fox acquired the rights to a German sound-on-film process which he dubbed "Movietone" and in 1926 began offering films with a music-and- effects track. The following year he began the weekly "Fox Movietone News" feature, which ran until 1963. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired three-hundred acres in the open country west of Beverly Hills and built "Movietone City," the best-equipped studio of its time.

When rival Marcus Loew died in 1927, Fox offered to buy the Loew family's holdings; Loew's Inc. controlled more than two-hundred theaters as well as the MGM studio. 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, not included in the deal, fought back; using political connections, he called on the Justice Department's anti-trust unit to block the merger. Fate favoured Mayer; Fox was badly injured in a car crash and by the time he recovered the 1929 stock market crash had taken most of his fortune, putting an end to the Loew's merger.

Over-extended and close to bankruptcy, Fox was stripped of his empire and even ended up in jail. Fox Film, with more than five-hundred theatres, was placed in receivership; a bank-mandated reorganisation propped the company up for a time, but it was clear a merger was the only way Fox Film could survive.

Twentieth Century Pictures foundation

At Warner Brothers, production-head Darryl Zanuck was in a feud over money; Warners had cut costs in the depression by reducing salaries. When Zanuck asked for his pay to be restored, they refused, and he resigned. Days later he announced the formation of a new company Twentieth Century Pictures, in partnership with Joseph Schenck, president of United Artists. Begun in mid-1933, releasing four to six pictures a year through United Artists, Twentieth Century was a success, in part due to financial backing from L.B. Mayer and Nicholas Schenck, Joe's brother and head of Loews.

Twentieth Century/Fox merger

Two years later, Joe Schenck and Fox Film management agreed to a merger; Zanuck was to head production, and Schenck would be chief executive. Observers of this mouse-and-elephant combination expected that the new company would be called "Fox-Twentieth Century." But taking the name Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, the new company was created on May 31, 1935. (The hyphen was dropped in 1985.)

Aside from the theater chain and a first-rate studio lot, Zanuck and Schenck felt there wasn't much else to Fox Film. 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, ice-skater Sonja Henie, and Betty Grable. And also on the Fox payroll he found two players whom he would build 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 passed 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. But when Zanuck returned in 1943 he intended to make Fox's output more serious-minded. During the next few years, with pictures like Wilson, Gentleman's Agreement, The Snake Pit, Boomerang and Pinkie, Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books and Broadway musicals.

After the war audiences drifted away, and the arrival of television hastened the process. 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 one-half 1946's level, 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" 3-D, 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. 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, Warners, MGM, Universal and Columbia 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 Mrs. Zanuck 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. Chairman 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; Taylor accepted, and costs for Cleopatra began to escalate. Meanwhile, another remake - this one 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 unoriginal romantic comedy, titled Something's Got To Give paired Fox's most bankable star of the 1950's - Marilyn Monroe - with Dean Martin, but with a troubled star and belligerent Director (George Cukor) causing delays on a daily basis, 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 into release as another source of quick cash. This offended Zanuck, still Fox's largest shareholder. After it became clear that Something's Got To Give would not be able to progress without Monroe in the lead (Dean Martin had refused to work with anyone else), Skouras finally relented 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. They wouldn't see the light of day for nearly 40 years. At the next board meeting Zanuck spoke for eight hours, convincing directors that Skouras was mis-managing the company and the only possible savior was Darryl F. Zanuck. He was installed as chairman; 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 luckily 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), a handsomely produced adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, which became one of the all-time greatest box office hits.

Zanuck stayed on as chairman until 1971 but his last years were not easy; expensive pictures he had commissioned flopped and in 1969, 1970 and 1971 the studio recorded huge losses. 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.

Rupert Murdoch

With financial stability came new owners, and in 1978 control passed to the investors Marc Rich and Marvin Davis. Three years later, Rich sold his shares to Rupert Murdoch's Australian media group, News Corporation. In 1984, Davis sold his half of Fox to News Corp., giving Murdoch's company 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 commercial television-network (most likely due to the DuMont fiasco).

But 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 an American citizen. This he did and in 1985 the new Fox Broadcasting Company took to the air. Over the next twenty years the network and owned-stations group have expanded to become extremely profitable for News Corp. The film studio has prospered too, although Fox has backed away from its reputation for literary adaptations and adult themes to concentrate on "popcorn" movies such as the Star Wars trilogies (1977-1983 and 1999-2005), and others.

Since January 2001, this company has been the international distributor for MGM/UA releases.

Notable films

For earlier (pre-1935) Fox films, see Fox Film
Among the studio's notable films:

1930s

* The Littlest Rebel (comedy, 1935)
* Music Is Magic (musical, 1935)
* Thanks A Million (musical, 1935)
* Metropolitan (musical, 1935)
* In Old Chicago (drama, 1937)
* Alexander's Ragtime Band (drama, 1938)
* Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (comedy-drama, 1938)
* The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
* Young Mr. Lincoln (drama, 1939)

1940s

* The Mark of Zorro (1940)
* The Grapes of Wrath (drama, 1940)
* How Green Was My Valley (drama, 1941)
* Blood and Sand (drama, 1941)
* The Pied Piper (drama, 1942)
* The Song of Bernadette (drama, 1943)
* The Ox-Bow Incident (drama, 1943)
* The Gang's All Here (1943)
* My Friend Flicka (drama 1943)
* Heaven Can Wait (comedy, 1943)
* Laura (drama, 1944)
* Wilson (drama, 1944)
* Jane Eyre (1944)
* State Fair (1945)
* Leave Her to Heaven (drama, 1945)
* Anna and the King of Siam (drama, 1946)
* Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
* Miracle on 34th Street (comedy-drama, 1947) (and its remake in 1994)
* A Letter to Three Wives (drama, 1949)

1950s

* All About Eve (drama, 1950)
* Cheaper by the Dozen (comedy-drama, 1950) (plus remake in 2003 and sequel in 2005)
* The Day the Earth Stood Still (science fiction, 1951)
* Viva Zapata! (1952)
* Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
* The Robe (1954) (the first film in CinemaScope)
* How to Marry a Millionaire (1954)
* Carmen Jones (1954)
* Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)
* The Seven Year Itch (1955)
* The King and I (1956)
* Anastasia (1956)
* Bus Stop (1956)
* The Girl Can't Help It (1956)
* Peyton Place (1957)
* An Affair to Remember (1957)
* The Fly (1958) (plus remake in 1986 along with its sequel in 1989)
* South Pacific (1958, distribution only)
* The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)

1960s

* The Millionairess (1960)
* The Hustler (1961)
* Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961)
* The Longest Day (1962)
* Cleopatra (1963)
* Zorba the Greek (1964)
* The Sound of Music (1965)
* The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
* Von Ryan's Express (1965)
* Batman (1966)
* The Sand Pebbles (1966)
* How to Steal a Million (1966)
* Doctor Doolittle (1967) (plus remake in 1998 and sequels in 2001 and 2006)
* Valley of the Dolls (1967)
* A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
* Planet of the Apes (1968) (plus sequels in 1969, 1970, and 1971 and remake in 2001)
* Hello Dolly! (1969)
* Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
* The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

1970s

* M*A*S*H (1970) (plus TV remake in 1972)
* Patton (1970)
* Myra Breckinridge (1970)
* Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
* The French Connection (1971) and sequel (1975)
* The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
* The Paper Chase (1973)
* Young Frankenstein (1974)
* The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
* The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975)
* Spinach (1975)
* The Omen (1976) (plus remake in 2006)
* Silent Movie (1976)
* Silver Streak (1976)
* Wizards (1977)
* Star Wars (1977) (later known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) (co-production with Lucasfilm Ltd.)
* Julia (1977)
* High Anxiety (1977)
* The World's Greatest Lover (1977)
* Norma Rae (1979)
* Alien (1979) (and its three sequels in 1986, 1992, and 1997)
* Breaking Away (1979)
* All That Jazz (1979) (co-production with Columbia Pictures)

1980s

* Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (distribution only) (co-production with Lucasfilm Ltd.)
* Nine to Five (1980)
* Cannonball Run (1981) (plus sequel)
* History of the World, Part I (1981)
* Porky's (1981, Canada) and its sequels (1983 and 1985)
* Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) (distribution only) (co-production with Lucasfilm Ltd.)
* Fire and Ice (1983)
* The King of Comedy (1983)
* Romancing the Stone (1984)
* Revenge of the Nerds (1984) (plus sequels in 1986, 1992, and 1994)
* The Flamingo Kid (1984)
* Ladyhawke (1985)
* Cocoon (1985)
* Aliens (1986)
* Lucas (1986)
* The Fly (1986)
* Less Than Zero (1987)
* Raising Arizona (1987)
* Wall Street (1987)
* Broadcast News (1987)
* The Princess Bride (1987)
* Predator (1987) (and its sequel in 1990)
* Big (1988)
* Die Hard (1988) (and its 3 sequels in 1990, 1995, and 2007)
* Working Girl (1988)
* Say Anything (1989)
* The Fly II (1989)
* The Abyss (1989)

1990s

* Home Alone (1990) (and its three sequels in 1992, 1997, and 2002)
* Edward Scissorhands (1990)
* Predator 2 (1990)
* Night of the Living Dead (1990)
* Only the Lonely (1991)
* Hot Shots! (1991) (and its sequel in 1993)
* Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
* Alien 3 (1992)
* The Sandlot (1993) (co-production with Island World)
* Rookie of the Year (1993)
* Freaked (1993)
* The Good Son (1993)
* The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) (based on the 1960s TV series by the same name)
* Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) (and its upcoming sequel in 2006)
* Ghost in the Machine (1993) and (1994)
* Bad Girls (1994)
* Speed (1994) (plus sequel in 1997)
* Baby's Day Out (1994)
* True Lies (1994)
* Far from Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1994)
* The Pagemaster (1994) (co-production with Turner Pictures)
* French Kiss (1995)
* Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
* Independence Day (1996) (co-production with Centropolis Entertainment)
* Romeo + Juliet (1996)
* Fish Bowl (1997,in co-production with * Imagine Entertainment .)
* Anastasia (1997)
* Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997)
* Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)
* Alien: Resurrection (1997)
* Home Alone 3 (1997)
* Volcano (1997)
* Soul Food (1997)
* Titanic (1997) (co-production with Paramount Pictures)
* Doctor Dolittle (1998) (and its two sequels in 2001 and 2006)
* There's Something About Mary (1998)
* Ever After (1998)
* Hope Floats (1998)
* The Thin Red Line (1998)
* Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) (distribution only)
* Fight Club (1999)
* Office Space (1999)
* Entrapment (1999)
* Never Been Kissed'' (1999)

2000s

* Big Momma's House (2000) (co-production with Regency Enterprises) (and 2006 sequel)
* X-Men (2000) (and its sequels in 2003 and 2006) (co-produced with Marvel)
* Cast Away (2000)
* Moulin Rouge! (2001)
* Ice Age (2002) (co-production with Blue Sky Studios) (and 2006 sequel, Ice Age: The Meltdown)
Minority Report (2002)
* Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) (distribution only)
* Daredevil (2003) (co-productions with Regency Enterprises and Marvel Enterprises
* X2: X-Men United (2003) (co-production with Marvel Enterprises)
* The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
* The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
* Garfield: The Movie (2004) (upcoming sequel in 2006)
* (2004) (Announced sequel expected in summer 2007)
* Robots (2005)
* Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) (distribution only)
* Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) (co-produced with Regency Enterprises)
* Fantastic Four (2005) (co-production with Marvel Enterprises)
* Walk the Line (2005)
* Aquamarine (2006)
* Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
* X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) (co-production with Marvel Entertainment)
* The Fairly OddParents Movie (2006) (with Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies)
* The Sentinel (2006)
* Big Momma's House 2 (2006) (co-production with Regency Enterprises)
* La mujer de mi hermano (2006) (co-production with Alien Productions)
* Danny Phantom: The Movie (2006,in co-production with Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies)

20th Television/20th Century Fox Television

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

Evolution of the opening logo

Image:20th23.JPG|Logo from 1935-1953 (Black & White)Image:Logo_20th_century_fox_1935-1953.jpg|Logo from 1935-1953 (Color)Image:Logo_20th_century_fox_1953-1981.jpg|Logo from 1953-1981Image:Logo_20th_century_fox_1981-1993.jpg|Logo from 1981-1994Image:Logo_20th_century_fox.jpg|Logo from 1994-present

20th Century Fox fanfare

The music accompanying the Fox logo was composed in 1933 by Alfred Newman, longtime head of Fox's music department. [1]

In 1954, an extended version was created for CinemaScope films, and debuted on the film The Robe. The version currently used before films is this extended version.[2]

Popular culture references and spoofs

* The thirteenth episode of the short-lived 1957 radio series The Stan Freberg Show presented a movie parody in which the studio was announced at the beginning of the spoof as "20th Century Freberg."
* "Twentieth Century Fox" is also the punning title of a song by The Doors on their self-titled debut album (1967), referring to a foxy lady.
* A Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch portrayed a movie studio known as "20th Century Vole," with a logo and fanfare similar to that of Fox.
* In the link to the "Conrad Poohs and His Dancing Teeth" sketch in And Now For Something Completely Different (1971), 20th Century Fox is called "20th Century Frog".
21st Century Fox was the title of an album by Samantha Fox, as well as many articles about both the film studio and various attractive women in many publications; the studio reportedly considered changing its name but declined.
* The animated science-fiction TV series show Futurama, set around the year 3000, closed with a logo for "30th Century Fox." [3]
* In the Arthur episode "Buster Baxter, Cat Saver", during the end scene where a mock movie is promoted that documents Buster's "heroics", Mr. Ratburn announces "21st Century Rat presents"; the "studio's" logo is him dressed as the Columbia Torch Lady with the text "Art is Rat Backwards...Almost.", which may be mocking the MGM motto Ars Gratia Artis.
*Some of the cinema advertisements for Garfield and commercial advertisements for Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties had the traditional logo replaced by "20th Century Cat", some with the fat cat's signature orange stripes around the letters.
*In some of the commercials for Cheaper by the Dozen, the 20th part of the logo gets pushed aside by the number "12."

External links

* 20th Century Fox Movies official site
*

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

20th Century Fox: Encyclopedia BETA

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