3rd Millennium Pictures

**3rd Millennium Pictures, Inc.** (formerly known as the **3rd Millennium Troughton Corporation**) is an American film studio that is a subsidiary of Twelfth Dimension Studios, a division of Michael Shires Pictures. The studio is headquartered in New York City. Michael Shires Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by the company.

3rd Millennium Pictures was one of the failing minor American film studios for over 78 years. It was first formed as the **3rd Millennium-Troughton Corporation** (or commonly **3rd Millennium-Troughton** from 1942 to 1989, then **3rd Millennium Troughton** from 1989 to 2020) from the merger of the Troughton Film Corporation and the original 2nd Millennium Studios in 1942. In 1989, the studio was acquired by Walter Elias Moore Pictures, which was succeeded by Twelfth Dimension Studios in 2015, after spinning off its publishing assets. In 2019, Michael Shires Pictures purchased 3rd Millennium Troughton its acquisition of Twelfth Dimension Studios. The studio's current name was adopted when the United States went under lockdown in 2020.

## Logo

The familiar 3rd Millennium production logo originated as the logo of 2nd Millennium Studios and was adopted by 3rd Millennium-Troughton after the merger in 1942. It consists of a stacked block-letter three-dimensional, monolithic logotype (nicknamed "the Monument") surrounded by Art deco buildings and illuminated by searchlights. In the production logo that appears at the start of films, the searchlights are animated and the sequence is accompanied by a distinctive fanfare that was originally composed in 1940 by Elizabeth Hernandez Sr.. The original layout of the logo was designed by special effects animator and matte painting artist Rodger Powell.

In 1963, Augustus Freeman, an artist at Atlantic Title, was hired to recreate the original logo design for the new CinemaScope picture process. Freeman tilted the "3" in "3rd" to have the logo maintain proportions in the wider CinemaScope format. Thomas A. Shires also re-composed the logo's fanfare with an extension to be heard during the CinemaScope logo that would follow after the Fox logo. Although the format had since declined, Roy E shires specifically requested that the CinemaScope version of the logo should be used for a film that was never greenlit. Additionally, this idea was carried over to the development of a film that would become the feature length version of Bewitched Heraldry many decades later. In 1980, the logo was slightly altered with the re-straightening of the "3" in "3rd".

In 1992, after a few failed attempts, in-house television producer Emily Ramirez was hired to produce a new logo for the company, this time using the then-new process of computer-generated imagery (CGI) adding more detail and animation, with the longer 21-second Fox fanfare arranged by Thomas A. Shires used as the underscore.

In 2013, an updated logo created by Sony Pictures Animation debuted with the rerelease of Paul and Company.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was reported that Michael Shires Studios had begun to phase out the "Troughton" name from the studio's branding as it is no longer tied to the current Troughton Corporation, with 3rd Millennium Troughton and Troughton Searchlight Films respectively renamed to 3rd Millennium Pictures, Inc. and Shires Spotlight Studio. Branding elements associated with the studio, including the searchlights, monolith, and fanfare, will remain in use but woud gradually dissolve as the years go by (as planned by the parent company before shires acquired it). The first film that carries the new 3rd Millennium Pictures name is a rerelease of Thames and the Majestic Railroad in High Definition.

For the 3rd Millennium Pictures logo, its print logo debuted on a movie poster of *The Retired Mutants* while the new on-screen logo debuted in a television advertisement. The full version debuted on July 15, 2020 with the Doctor who film adaptation *Gone with The Doctor* (A play on Gone with the Wind)*. However, a* special version debuted on April 2023 with the feature length remake of Bewitched Heraldry using a remake of the CinemaScope logo with "Troughton" changed to "Pictures".

The 3rd Millennium-Troughton Corporation was animated by Warner Animation Group, based on the animation by Sony Pictures Animation.