20th Century Studios

### Formerly

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (1935 - 1985), 20th Century Fox (1985 - 2020)

## History

When Fox Film was struggling to stay afloat in the year of 1935, one of the founders of Twentieth Century Pictures decided to merge their studio with Fox Film, forming the first iteration of the studio, which was known as Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.
Higher attendance in cinemas, saw the 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation become the third most profitable studio, at the time, overtaking RKO Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

In 1953, a court mandated split was enacted between the film studio and the cinema company, forcing the creation of Fox National Theatres. It was at this time that the studio was starting to hemorrhage money, which led to the company mortgaging its studio to buy a new type of french cinema system, known as Cinerama. They were able to buy the exclusive rights to use the cinerama system, which led to the studio exclusively filming in that format. They also forced all of their cinemas to upgrade to this new system. Not long after the success of the first two films in this system, they opened up the rights for other studios to use it.

By 1956, 20th-Century Fox had enough money coming in, they were able to establish a small subsidiary studio, to help produce B-films for them, known as Regal Pictures.

Again by the 1960's, the company was qucikly losing money and needed to rethink the way they were doing business. In 1959, production on Cleopatra began, which led to one of the executives offering Elizabeth Taylor $1 million to star in the film, which was unheard of at the time. The film saw many setbakcs, and wasn't released until 1963. Many other films at the time were also taking longer to produce than expected, which meant that more money was being spent, than being earned. After Cleopatra had cost $40 million to produce, the studio had to sell its backlot to help stay afloat.

In 1963, the board of 20th Century Fox were convinced that the studio head was mismanaging the studio and fired him. His replacement, quickly wrapped up the filming of Cleopatra and sent it to cinemas, ultimately becoming a huge success. Another film, The Longest Day was also released and was received well, bringing some money in for the studio. However, although these two films were successful, it was not enough to save the studio, so the new head stopped production on any large scale films, and started to produce only small budgeted films. This did help to launch the studio back into one of the top studios of the time.

By the mid to late 60's the studio was starting to move back to larger films, having successes with The Sound of Music and Planet of the Apes. By 1971, 20th Century-Fox was heading downhill again, which led to the removal of the studio head. The new management were able to bring the studio back to good health, after the purchase of resort properties, soft-drink bottlers and theatres in Australia.

In 1973, the studio found themselves making a film about a burning tower, with which Warner Bros. also found themselves. Instead of having competing films, the two studios decided to sign the very first joint venture contract, which lead to both studios producing the one film (The Towering Inferno).
In 1977, the studio created the most profitable film ever made Star Wars, in a joint venture with newly formed Lucasfilm.

With the success of the late 70's, the studio was bought by investors for $720 million in 1981. Three years after the purchase, one of the investors had become a fugitive from justice and had fled to Switzerland. In 1985, Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation bought the 50% of the company that had been frozen by the U.S. Government, for $250 million. Murdoch then also purchased Metromedia Television Stations, which would ultimately become the Fox Networks. He then went and purchsed the other investors stake in the company, giving News Corporation full control of the studio. This purchase also led to a rename to 20th Century Fox.

In 1994, Fox established three new divisions within the studio, Fox Searchlight pictures, Fox Family Films and Fox 2000 Pictures. After the success, with these studios, News Corporation bought a majority holdings in Blue Sky Studios, which allowed them to compete with Walt Disney Studios. After the success of Anastasia, Fox Family Films, were rebranded as Fox Animation Studios.

The beginning of 2006 led to the creation of Fox Atomic, under Fox Searchlight. However after a few bombs at the box office, the studio was shut down in 2009.

2008 led to the creation of Fox STAR Studios, an Asian subsidiary which was a joint venture with STAR TV, which was also owned by News Corporation. The studio would start producing films for the Bollywood market and then expand into other regions. In the same year, the company also created Fox International Productions.

In August of 2012, Dreamworks Animation signed a five-year distribution deal for all of their films in both the domestic and international markets. The deal ended after the five years, with Dreamworkd being purchased by paramount not long after, stopping any chance of a renewal.
2012 also saw a massive reshuffle of Murdoch's assets, with him splitting his assets in two, creating a new News Coporation and 21st Century Fox, with the latter holding all of the entertainment assets.

In Dcember of 2017, The Walt Disney Company announced plans to purchase 21st Century Fox, for $52.5 billion, but due to a bid by NBCUniversal, the final price was $71.3 billion. A Year after the purchase was complete, Disney renamed the studio as 20th Century Studios.

## Streamable Content

To see all of the 20th Century Studios content currently streaming on Disney+ in Australia, please click the box below.

20th Century Studios
## Missing Content

Wondering what 20th Century Studios produced content is missing from Disney+ in Australia, click on the tabs below to find out.
*(Please note that films co-produced with New-Regency Films, are found under the New-Regency Films page).*

Present - 2010