20th Century Studios facts for kids
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Logo used since 2020
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Fox Studio Lot in Century City, Los Angeles
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Formerly
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| Industry | Film |
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| Founded | May 31, 1935 |
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| Headquarters | Fox Studio Lot Building 88, 10201 West Pico Boulevard,
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United States (until 2025)
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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| Products | Motion pictures |
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Number of employees
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2,300 (2018) |
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20th Century Studios, Inc. is a famous American movie studio. You probably know it by its old name, 20th Century Fox. It is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of the Walt Disney Studios group. The studio is famous for making some of the biggest movies in history.
For over 80 years, it has been one of the most important film studios in Hollywood. It was created in 1935 when two smaller companies, Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures, joined together. In 2019, Disney bought the studio. A year later, its name was changed to 20th Century Studios to avoid confusion with the Fox Corporation.
Some of the studio's most successful movies include the first six Star Wars films, Avatar, Ice Age, and the X-Men series. It also produced classics like The Sound of Music and Titanic. Both of these films won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Contents
History of the Studio
How It All Began
In 1935, two movie companies decided to merge. One was Twentieth Century Pictures, run by Darryl F. Zanuck and Joseph Schenck. The other was Fox Film, which was having money troubles. Together, they formed the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.
Zanuck became the head of movie production. He signed many talented young actors who became big stars, like Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, and Shirley Temple. The new studio quickly became very successful. During World War II, more people went to the movies, and 20th Century-Fox became one of the most profitable studios.
After the war, fewer people went to theaters. To bring audiences back, the studio took a big risk. In 1953, it introduced CinemaScope, a new technology that made movies look much wider and more epic on the screen. The first CinemaScope movie, The Robe, was a huge hit. Soon, almost every studio was using CinemaScope.
Tough Times and Big Hits
In the early 1960s, the studio faced serious financial problems. The movie Cleopatra was costing a huge amount of money to make. Its budget grew from a few million to about $40 million, which was a massive sum at the time. To raise money, the studio had to sell a large part of its land, which is now a neighborhood in Los Angeles called Century City.
Darryl F. Zanuck returned to lead the studio and helped turn things around. The studio's biggest success came in 1965 with The Sound of Music. This musical film was incredibly popular all over the world. It won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and saved the studio from its money troubles.
In the 1970s, the studio continued to make popular films. In 1977, it released Star Wars, which became the highest-grossing film of its time. The success of Star Wars made the studio a huge amount of money and changed the movie industry forever.
New Owners and New Eras
In 1981, the studio was sold to investors Marvin Davis and Marc Rich. A few years later, in 1985, media businessman Rupert Murdoch bought the studio. His company, News Corporation, also started the Fox Broadcasting Company television network. Around this time, the hyphen was dropped from the studio's name, making it 20th Century Fox.
Under Murdoch, the studio created new divisions to make different kinds of movies. These included Fox Searchlight Pictures for independent films and Fox Animation Studios for animated movies. The animation studio's first big hit was Anastasia.
In the 2000s, the studio found more success with the X-Men and Ice Age movie series. The Ice Age films were made by Blue Sky Studios, an animation company that Fox had bought.
The Disney Era
On March 20, 2019, a new chapter began. The Walt Disney Company bought most of 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox film studio. This was one of the biggest deals in entertainment history.
To avoid confusion with other companies still owned by Rupert Murdoch, Disney decided to change the studio's name. On January 17, 2020, "20th Century Fox" officially became 20th Century Studios. The first movie released under the new name was The Call of the Wild.
Even with the new name, the studio kept its famous logo and music. Today, 20th Century Studios continues to produce major films, including sequels to the Avatar series. It also makes movies for streaming services like Disney+ and Hulu.
The Famous Logo and Fanfare
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One of the most recognizable things about the studio is its logo and music. The logo shows the studio's name in giant, stacked letters, like a monument. Bright searchlights sweep across the sky behind it. This famous image was first designed in 1933.
The powerful opening music, called a fanfare, was composed by Alfred Newman. When the studio introduced CinemaScope in 1953, Newman wrote a longer version of the fanfare. This is the version that George Lucas famously used at the beginning of Star Wars.
Over the years, the logo has been updated using computer-generated imagery (CGI) to look more detailed and realistic. When Disney renamed the studio in 2020, they kept the classic logo and fanfare because they are so iconic.
Famous Movie Series
20th Century Studios is known for creating some of the most popular movie series of all time.
- Star Wars: The studio originally distributed the first six films of this legendary space saga.
- Avatar: This series, created by James Cameron, is known for its groundbreaking visual effects.
- X-Men: This series brought Marvel's mutant superheroes to the big screen.
- Ice Age: An animated series about a group of prehistoric animals, produced by Blue Sky Studios.
- Planet of the Apes: A long-running series about a world where intelligent apes are the dominant species.
- Home Alone: A classic family comedy series that started in 1990.
- Die Hard: An action series starring Bruce Willis.
Highest-Grossing Films
Here are some of the studio's biggest box office hits from around the world.
| Rank | Title | Year | Box office gross |
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| 1 | Avatar | 2009 | $2,922,917,914 |
| 2 | Avatar: The Way of Water | 2022 | $2,320,250,281 |
| 3 | Titanic | 1997 | $2,256,003,352 |
| 4 | Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace | 1999 | $1,046,515,409 |
| 5 | Bohemian Rhapsody | 2018 | $903,655,259 |
| 6 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | 2009 | $886,686,817 |
| 7 | Ice Age: Continental Drift | 2012 | $877,244,782 |
| 8 | Independence Day | 1996 | $817,400,891 |
| 9 | Deadpool 2 | 2018 | $785,046,920 |
| 10 | Deadpool | 2016 | $783,112,979 |
Images for kids
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Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here (1943). She was once the highest-paid actress in the U.S.
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A scene from the musical That Night in Rio (1941).
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A scene from the 1952 film Viva Zapata!.
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The Fox studio lot in Los Angeles in 2005.
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See also
In Spanish: 20th Century Studios para niños
