The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox came with a handful of studios, a lot of works in progress, and a back library of thousands of works. What it didn’t come with was an exclusive claim to the Fox name in Hollywood. The main Fox Television company has continued to use that name and that has led to some confusion with the new larger domain of Disney.
The Fox Corporation still exists and controls Fox News, Fox Sports and the Fox TV network channel along with a few other small divisions that weren’t sold to Disney. There had been more than a little confusion about which is owned by which in the general public. To solve that, Disney has removed the Fox branding from the properties it purchased.
This move happened slowly with a few properties like Searchlight Pictures dropping the Fox name about a month ago, then at the end of last week, Disney made it official by changing the name of the main studios to 20th Century Studios. “Downhill,” the next film from Searchlight will be the first to get the updated logo, while the Harrison Ford led “Call of the Wild” will have the honor of the first use of the 20th Century Studios title.
It doesn’t sound like this was a legal or contractual change from Disney’s part. They still on the FX and FX2 channels, which have their roots in the Fox name. There are also a few Disney owned television production companies that still haven’t officially announced they are removing Fox from their name (although we imagine that will be in their future).
If you are worried about the iconic 20th Century fanfare and spotlight logo at the beginning of the movies, that is expected to remain, just without the word Fox.
I just wonder if the “Studios” will ever return to how it started as a working “TV” and “Film”Studio or is all that gone now for Star Wars and Toyland??
That’s all gone. Instead of showing you how the movies are made, you’ll be in the movie.
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