20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, with hyphen, from 1935 to 1985) — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios as of 2011^. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
The company was founded on May 31, 1935, as the result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation, founded by William Fox in 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures, founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz.
The Fox Film Corporation was formed in 1915 by the theater chain pioneer William Fox, who formed Fox Film Corporation by merging two companies he had established in 1913: Greater New York Film Rental, a distribution firm, which was part of the Independents; and Fox (or Box, depending on the source) Office Attractions Company, a production company. This merging of a distribution company and a production company was an early example of vertical integration. Only a year before, the latter company had distributed Winsor McCay's groundbreaking cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur.
Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary. The company's first film studios were set up in Fort Lee, New Jersey where it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel to Hollywood to oversee the studio's West Coast production facilities where a more hospitable and cost-effective climate existed for filmmaking. Fox had purchased the Edendale studio of the failing Selig Polyscope Company, which had been making films in Los Angeles since 1909 and was the first motion picture studio in Los Angeles.

Joe Schenck and Fox management agreed to a merger; Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox-West Coast theaters, helped in the merger (and later became president of the new company). Although it was still much smaller than Fox, Twentieth Century was the senior partner in the merger. At first, it was expected that the new company would be called "Fox-Twentieth Century." However, 20th Century brought more to bargaining table besides Schenck and Zanuck. It was profitable and had more talent than Fox, the new company was called The Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, and began trading on May 31, 1935; the hyphen was dropped in 1985. Schenck became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, while Kent remained as President. Zanuck became Vice President in Charge of Production, replacing Fox's longtime production chief Winfield Sheehan.
For many years, 20th Century-Fox claimed to have been founded in 1915, the year Fox Film Corporation was founded. However, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding date, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915.

Rupert Murdoch

With financial stability came new owners, and in 1978 control passed to the investors Marc Rich and Marvin Davis. By 1985, Rich had fled the U.S. after evading $100 million in U.S. income taxes, and Davis sold Rich's half of Fox to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Six months later Davis sold his half of Fox, giving News Corp 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 television network that was financed by advertising.
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 a US citizen. He did so in 1985 (the same year 20th Century-Fox dropped the hyphen from its name), and in 1986 the new Fox Broadcasting Company took to the air. Over the next 20-odd years the network and owned-stations group expanded to become extremely profitable for News Corp.

In my opinion 20th Century Fox is a really powerful media company and is known around the globe as one of the best film companies in the world. In my eyes 20th Century Fox has had its fare share of amazing films and is exceeding in its success in the media industry.