20th Century Studios

20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, is an American film production and distribution company currently owned by the Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles, until its lease with Fox Corporation ended and it was relocated to the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by this studio in theatrical markets.

For 90 years, 20th Century has been one of the major American film studios. It was founded on May 31, 1935, by the merger of Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures, and was one of the original "Big Five" among eight majors of Hollywood's Golden Age. In 1985, it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which was renamed 21st Century Fox in 2013 after it spun off its publishing assets. Disney purchased most of 21st Century Fox's assets, which included 20th Century Fox, on March 20, 2019. The studio adopted its current name on January 17, 2020, in order to avoid confusion with Fox Corporation, and subsequently started to use it for the copyright of 20th Century and Searchlight Pictures productions on December 4. 20th Century is currently one of five live-action film studios within the Walt Disney Studios, alongside Walt Disney Pictures, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and its sister speciality unit, Searchlight Pictures. 20th Century also releases animated films produced by its animation division, 20th Century Animation.

The most commercially successful film franchises from 20th Century include the first six Star Wars films, X-Men, Avatar, Ice Age, Alien, Die Hard, and Planet of the Apes. Additionally, the studio's library includes many notable films such as The Sound of Music, Independence Day, and Titanic, with two of the three films winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, and all of them were among the highest-grossing films of all time, with Titanic breaking the record during its initial release.

History

From founding to 1956

Twentieth Century Pictures' Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck left United Artists over a stock dispute and began merger talks with the management of financially struggling Fox Film under President Sidney Kent.

Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox West Coast Theaters, helped make it happen (and later became president of the new company). The company had been struggling since founder William Fox lost control of it in 1930.

Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures merged in 1935. Initially it was speculated in The New York Times that the newly merged company would be named Fox-Twentieth Century. The new company, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31, 1935. Kent remained at the company, joining Schenck and Zanuck. Zanuck replaced Winfield Sheehan as the company's production chief.

The company established a special training school. Lynn Bari, Patricia Farr, and Anne Nagel were among 14 young women "launched on the trail of film stardom" on August 6, 1935, when they each received a six-month contract with Twentieth Century-Fox after spending 18 months in the school. The contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years.

For many years Twentieth Century-Fox identified itself as having been founded in 1915, the year Fox Film began operations. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, in recent years it has considered the 1935 merger as its founding, even though most film historians agree it was launched in 1915. The company's films retained the Twentieth Century Pictures searchlight logo and fanfare in the opening credits but with the name changed to Twentieth Century-Fox.

After the merger was completed, Zanuck signed young actors to help carry Twentieth Century-Fox: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Carmen Miranda, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Sonja Henie, and Betty Grable. Twentieth Century-Fox also hired Alice Faye and Shirley Temple, who appeared in several major films for the studio in the 1930s.

Higher movie attendance during World War II helped Twentieth Century-Fox overtake RKO and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to become the third most profitable film studio. In 1941 Zanuck was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Signal Corps and assigned to supervise the production of U.S. Army training films. His partner William Goetz filled in at the Twentieth Century-Fox office while he was away.

In 1942 Spyros Skouras succeeded Kent as president of the studio. During the next few years, with pictures like Wilson (1944), The Razor's Edge (1946), Boomerang, Gentleman's Agreement (both 1947), The Snake Pit (1948), and Pinky (1949), Zanuck established a reputation for provocative films for adults. Twentieth Century-Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as Ben Ames Williams' Leave Her to Heaven (1945), starring Gene Tierney, which was the highest-grossing Twentieth Century-Fox film of the 1940s. The studio also produced film versions of Broadway musicals, including the Rodgers and Hammerstein titles, beginning with State Fair (1945), the only musical they wrote for the screen.

After the war, audiences slowly drifted away. Twentieth Century-Fox held on to its theaters until a court-mandated "divorce"; they were spun off as Fox National Theaters in 1953. That year, with attendance at half the 1946 numbers, Twentieth Century-Fox gambled on an unproven filming process. Noting that the two film sensations of 1952 had been in the Cinerama format, which required three projectors to fill a giant curved screen, and in "Natural Vision" 3D, which got its effects of depth by requiring the use of polarized glasses, Twentieth Century-Fox mortgaged its studio to buy the rights to a French anamorphic projection system which gave a slight illusion of depth without glasses. President Spyros Skouras struck a deal with the inventor Henri Chrétien, leaving the other film studios empty-handed, and in 1953 introduced CinemaScope with the studio's groundbreaking feature film The Robe.

Zanuck announced in February 1953 that henceforth all Twentieth Century-Fox pictures would be made in CinemaScope. To convince theater owners to install this new process, Twentieth Century-Fox agreed to help pay conversion costs (about $25,000 per screen); and to ensure enough product, Twentieth Century-Fox leased access to CinemaScope to any rival studio choosing to use it. Seeing the box-office returns for the first two CinemaScope releases, The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire (also 1953), Warner Bros., MGM, RKO, Universal-International, Columbia, UA, Allied Artists, and Disney quickly adopted the process. In 1956 Twentieth Century-Fox engaged Robert Lippert to establish the subsidiary company Regal Pictures (later Associated Producers Incorporated) to film B movies in CinemaScope but branded as RegalScope. Twentieth Century-Fox produced new musicals using the CinemaScope process including Carousel and The King and I (both 1956).

CinemaScope resulted in a brief uptick in attendance, but by 1956 the numbers again began to slide. That year Darryl Zanuck announced his resignation as head of production. Zanuck moved to Paris and set himself up as an independent producer, seldom returning to the United States for many years. In mid-1956 the company loaned its pre-1948 film library, including TV distribution rights but not the copyrights of these titles, to National Telefilm Associates for 10 years.

Production and financial problems

Zanuck's successor, producer Buddy Adler, died a year later. President Spyros Skouras brought in a series of production executives, but none had Zanuck's success. By the early 1960s, Twentieth Century-Fox was in trouble. A new version of Cleopatra (1963) began production in 1959 with Joan Collins in the lead. As a publicity gimmick, producer Walter Wanger offered $1 million to Elizabeth Taylor if she would star; she accepted and costs for Cleopatra began to escalate. Richard Burton's on-set romance with Taylor was surrounding the media. However, Skouras' selfish preferences and inexperienced micromanagement on the film's production did nothing to speed up production on Cleopatra.

Meanwhile, another remake—of the Cary Grant hit My Favorite Wife (1940)—was rushed into production in an attempt to turn over a quick profit to help keep Twentieth Century-Fox afloat. The romantic comedy entitled Something's Got to Give paired Marilyn Monroe, Twentieth Century-Fox's most bankable star of the 1950s, with Dean Martin and director George Cukor. The troubled Monroe caused delays daily, and it quickly descended into a costly debacle. As Cleopatra's budget passed $10 million, eventually costing around $40 million, Twentieth Century-Fox sold its back lot (now the site of Century City) to Alcoa in 1961 to raise funds. After several weeks of script rewrites on the Monroe picture and very little progress, mostly due to director George Cukor's filming methods, in addition to Monroe's chronic sinusitis, Monroe was fired from Something's Got to Give and two months later she was found dead. According to Twentieth Century-Fox files, she was rehired within weeks for a two-picture deal totaling $1 million, $500,000 to finish Something's Got to Give (plus a bonus at completion), and another $500,000 for What a Way to Go. Elizabeth Taylor's disruptive reign on the Cleopatra set continued unchallenged from 1960 into 1962, though three Twentieth Century-Fox executives went to Rome in June 1962 to fire her. They learned that director Joseph L. Mankiewicz had filmed out of sequence and had only done interiors, so Twentieth Century-Fox was then forced to allow Taylor several more weeks of filming. In the meantime during that summer of 1962 Fox released nearly all of its contract stars to offset burgeoning costs, including Jayne Mansfield.

With few pictures on the schedule, Skouras wanted to rush Zanuck's big-budget war epic The Longest Day (1962), an accurate account of the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, with a huge international cast, into release as another source of quick cash. This offended Zanuck, still Twentieth Century-Fox's largest shareholder, for whom The Longest Day was a labor of love that he had dearly wanted to produce for many years. After it became clear that Something's Got to Give would not be able to progress without Monroe in the lead (Martin had refused to work with anyone else), Skouras finally decided that re-signing her was unavoidable. But days before filming was due to resume, she was found dead at her Los Angeles home and the picture resumed filming as Move Over, Darling, with Doris Day and James Garner in the leads. Released in 1963, the film was a hit. The unfinished scenes from Something's Got to Give were shelved for nearly 40 years. Rather than being rushed into release as if it were a B-picture, The Longest Day was lovingly and carefully produced under Zanuck's supervision. It was finally released at a length of three hours and was well received.

At the next board meeting, Zanuck spoke for eight hours, convincing directors that Skouras was mismanaging the company and that he was the only possible successor. Zanuck was installed as chairman, and then named his son Richard Zanuck as president. This new management group seized Cleopatra and rushed it to completion, shut down the studio, laid off the entire staff to save money, axed the long-running Movietone Newsreel (the archives of which are now owned by Fox News), and made a series of cheap, popular pictures that restored Twentieth Century-Fox as a major studio. The saving grace for the studio's fortunes came from the tremendous success of The Sound of Music (1965), an expensive and handsomely produced film adaptation of the highly acclaimed Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, which became a significant success at the box office and won five Academy Awards, including Best Director (Robert Wise) and Best Picture of the Year.

Twentieth Century-Fox also had two big science-fiction hits in the decade: Fantastic Voyage (1966), and the original Planet of the Apes (1968), starring Charlton Heston, Kim Hunter, and Roddy McDowall. Fantastic Voyage was the last film made in CinemaScope; the studio had held on to the format while Panavision lenses were being used elsewhere.

Zanuck stayed on as chairman until 1971, but there were several expensive flops in his last years, resulting in Twentieth Century-Fox posting losses from 1969 to 1971. Following his removal and replacement by Dennis Stanfill as chairman, and after an uncertain period, new management brought Twentieth Century-Fox back to health. Under president Gordon T. Stulberg and production head Alan Ladd, Jr., Twentieth Century-Fox films connected with modern audiences. Board chairman Dennis Stanfill used the profits to acquire resort properties, soft-drink bottlers, Australian theaters and other properties in an attempt to diversify enough to offset the boom-or-bust cycle of picture-making.

Foreshadowing a pattern of film production still yet to come, in late 1973 Twentieth Century-Fox partnered with Warner Bros. to co-produce The Towering Inferno (1974), an all-star action blockbuster from producer Irwin Allen. Both studios found themselves owning the rights to books about burning skyscrapers. Allen insisted on a meeting with the heads of both studios and announced that as Twentieth Century-Fox was already in the lead with their property it would be career suicide to have competing movies. Thus the first joint-venture studio deal was struck. In hindsight, while it may be commonplace now, back in the 1970s, it was a risky, but revolutionary, idea that paid off handsomely at both domestic and international box offices around the world.

Twentieth Century-Fox's success reached new heights by backing the most profitable film made up to that time, Star Wars (1977). Substantial financial gains were realized as a result of the film's unprecedented success: from a low of $6 in June 1976, stock prices more than quadrupled to almost $27 after Star Wars release; 1976 revenues of $195 million rose to $301 million in 1977.

Marvin Davis and Rupert Murdoch

With financial stability came new owners, when 20th Century-Fox was sold for $720 million on June 8, 1981, to investors Marc Rich and Marvin Davis. 20th Century-Fox's assets included Pebble Beach Golf Links, the Aspen Skiing Company and a Century City property upon which Davis built and twice sold Fox Plaza.

In 1982, the company decided to try on capitalizing the video game industry by forming the company's first video game division, Fox Video Games, in order to sell cartridges for consoles and computers, under the "Games of the Century" slogan, but the division failed due to the video game crash of 1983.

By 1984, Rich had become a fugitive from justice, having fled to Switzerland after being charged by U.S. federal prosecutors with tax evasion, racketeering and illegal trading with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. Rich's assets were frozen by U.S. authorities. In 1984, Marvin Davis bought out Marc Rich's 50% interest in 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation for an undisclosed amount, reported to be $116 million. In late 1983 and 1984, Australian businessman Rupert Murdoch made an unsuccessful attempt at acquiring Warner Communications, which included film studio Warner Bros. Pictures and other assets such as Warner Music Group. After failing to acquire Warner Communications through his company News Corporation, Murdoch shifted his attention to acquiring another film studio in Twentieth Century-Fox. Davis sold the 50% stake in Twentieth Century-Fox to News Corporation for $250 million in March 1985. Davis later backed out of a deal with Murdoch to purchase John Kluge's Metromedia television stations. Murdoch went ahead alone and bought the stations, and later bought out Davis' remaining stake in Twentieth Century-Fox for $325 million. From 1985, the hyphen was permanently deleted from the brand name, with Twentieth Century-Fox changing to Twentieth Century Fox.

To gain FCC approval of 20th Century-Fox's purchase of Metromedia's television holdings, once the stations of the long-dissolved DuMont network, Murdoch had to become a U.S. citizen. He did so in 1985, and in 1986 the new Fox Broadcasting Company took to the air. The network's visual imagery has often incorporated the searchlights of 20th Century Fox's logo. Over the next 20-odd years the network and owned-stations group expanded to become extremely profitable for News Corporation. Between the 1980s and 2010s, it aired in-house programming produced by 20th Century Fox's television studios (such as Family Guy, The Simpsons and The X-Files), as well as outside content from other studios (such as Beverly Hills 90210, Married... with Children and The O.C.). In October 1993, 20th Century Fox bought the rights to the Marvel Comics characters X-Men, while the Marvel characters the Fantastic Four were bought in 1998. During the 1990s, Marvel sold off the rest of their characters to other studios, and these studios had a clause in their contracts which would allow the characters rights to revert to Marvel if they failed to produce new films every few years. An animated series based on the X-Men had already begun airing on the Fox network in 1992, prior to 20th Century Fox acquiring the film rights the following year. In 2000, Bryan Singer directed the first film and the second film, while Brett Ratner was hired to direct the third film of the original trilogy. In 1994, News Corporation launched FX, which evolved into a premium cable network utilizing Fox's television production capabilities. That year, it also co-founded Foxtel, which went on to become Australia's main pay television provider. In 1996, News Corporation launched the popular cable news channel Fox News. All three of these entities initially used logos which were inspired by 20th Century Fox's searchlight logo design. Beginning in the mid-1990s, News Corporation also utilized the 20th Century Fox brand when launching various cable sports channels around the world, with these channels being branded Fox Sports channels.

In 1994, 20th Century Fox would establish four new divisions: Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox Family Films, Fox Animation Studios, and Fox 2000 Pictures. Fox Searchlight would specialize in the specialty and indie film market, with Thomas Rothman, then president of production at The Samuel Goldwyn Company, being brought on to head up the new studio. It was soon given its name with Rothman as its founding president. Fox Family Films was tasked with producing films geared towards families, under John Matoian. Fox Animation Studios was established on August 9, 1994, designed to compete with Walt Disney Feature Animation, whom had found success in the Disney Renaissance. Don Bluth and Gary Goldman of the failing Sullivan Bluth Studios were appointed to head the new $100 million animation studio. Fox 2000 Pictures was formed to specialize in mid-budget-ranging films targeted towards underserved groups of audiences, with Laura Ziskin brought on as president. In November 1995, 20th Century Fox entered a $50 million agreement to purchase the library of bankrupt Carolco Pictures, which would have given Fox the rights to make a sequel based on the hit Carolco film Terminator 2: Judgement Day. However, Fox dropped their bid in January 1996, after French company Canal+ submitted a $58 million counterbid for the assets.

In January 1997, News Corporation acquired New World Communications for $2.48 billion, and folded its television operations and library into 20th Century Fox. In June 1997, News Corporation acquired The Family Channel as part of a joint venture with Saban Entertainment, renaming it the Fox Family Channel. In October 2001, News Corporation sold the Fox Family Channel to Disney for $5.2 billion. As part of the sale, Disney acquired the rights to various children's programs which originally aired on the Fox network's Fox Kids block and the Fox Family Channel, in addition to acquiring Saban Entertainment and its library of 6,500 television episodes.

In August 1997, Fox's Los Angeles-based visual effects company, VIFX, acquired majority interest in Blue Sky Studios to form a new visual effects and animation company, temporarily renamed "Blue Sky/VIFX". Blue Sky had previously did the character animation of MTV Films' first film Joe's Apartment. Following the studio's expansion, Blue Sky produced character animation for the films Alien Resurrection, A Simple Wish, Mouse Hunt, Star Trek: Insurrection and Fight Club. VIFX was later sold to another VFX studio Rhythm and Hues Studios in March 1999. According to Blue Sky founder Chris Wedge, Fox considered selling Blue Sky as well by 2000 due to financial difficulties in the visual effects industry in general.

20th Century Fox acquired a 20% stake in film production company New Regency in September 1997, and as part of the deal became their distributor for the next 15 years, with the deal later being renewed past 2012. Regency previously had a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Pictures and intended to renew this deal, but talks between the two parties broke down in July 1997. In 2015, Warner's distribution rights to most of the pre-Fox Regency films expired, and 20th Century Fox subsequently became the new distributor for these films, despite these films still having the Warner Bros. opening logo.

In February 1998, following the success of Fox Animation Studios' first film Anastasia, Fox Family Films changed its name to Fox Animation Studios and dropped its live action production. which would be picked up by other production units. The actual Fox Animation Studios would become a division of the formerly-named Fox Family Films, being referred to as the Phoenix studio. However, Fox Animation Studios in Los Angeles would be renamed to 20th Century Fox Animation between 1998 and 1999. The Phoenix studio would face financial problems, eventually with Fox laying off 300 of the nearly 380 people who worked at the Phoenix studio to "make films more efficiently". After the box-office failure of Titan A.E., Fox Animation Studios would shut down on June 26, 2000. Their last film set to be made would have been an adaptation of Wayne Barlowe's illustrated novel Barlowe's Inferno, and was set to be done entirely with computer animation. Another film they would have made was The Little Beauty King, an adult animated film directed by Steve Oedekerk, which would have been a satire of the films from the Disney Renaissance. It would predate Shrek (2001).

Chris Wedge, film producer Lori Forte, and Fox Animation executive Chris Meledandri presented Fox with a script for a comedy feature film titled Ice Age. Studio management pressured staff to sell their remaining shares and options to Fox on the promise of continued employment on feature-length films. The studio moved to White Plains, New York and started production on Ice Age. As the film wrapped, Fox, having little faith in the film, feared that it might bomb at the box office. Fox terminated half of the production staff and tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer for the film and the studio. Instead, Ice Age was released by Fox in conjunction with Twentieth Century Fox Animation on March 15, 2002, to critical and commercial success, receiving a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003. Ice Age would spawn a franchise and bolster Blue Sky into producing feature films and becoming a household name in feature animation.

From 2000 to 2010, 20th Century Fox was the international distributor for MGM/UA releases. In the 1980s, 20th Century Fox – through a joint venture with CBS called CBS/Fox Video – had distributed certain UA films on video; thus UA has come full circle by switching to 20th Century Fox for video distribution. 20th Century Fox also makes money distributing films for small independent film companies.

20th Century Fox's parent News Corporation reincorporated itself as an American company in November 2004, with it having previously been incorporated as an Australian company since its founding. In 2006, 20th Century Fox terminated its production with Bad Hat Harry Productions for five years, because Bryan Singer left X-Men: The Last Stand to direct Superman Returns (2006) for Warner Bros. Pictures, then he returned to produce the first film and direct its sequel in the prequel trilogy, starting in 2011.

In late 2006, Fox Atomic was started up under Fox Searchlight head Peter Rice and COO John Hegeman as a sibling production division under Fox Filmed Entertainment. In early 2008, Atomic's marketing unit was transferred to Fox Searchlight and 20th Century Fox, when Hegeman moved to New Regency Productions. Debbie Liebling became president. After two middling successes and falling short with other films, the unit was shut down in April 2009. The remaining films under its Atomic label in production and post-productions were transferred to 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight with Liebling overseeing them.

In 2008, 20th Century Fox announced an Asian subsidiary, Fox STAR Studios, a joint venture with STAR TV, also owned by News Corporation. It was reported that Fox STAR would start by producing films for the Bollywood market, then expand to several Asian markets. In the same year, 20th Century Fox started Fox International Productions, but the division was closed in 2017.

Chernin Entertainment was founded by Peter Chernin after he stepped down as president of 20th Century Fox's then-parent company News Corporation in 2009. Chernin Entertainment's five-year first-look deal for the film and television was signed with 20th Century Fox and 20th Century Fox Television in 2009.

21st Century Fox era

On June 28, 2012, Rupert Murdoch announced that News Corporation would be split into two publishing and media-oriented companies: a new News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, which operated the Fox Entertainment Group and 20th Century Fox. Murdoch considered the name of the new company a way to maintain the 20th Century Fox heritage.

On August 20, 2012, 20th Century Fox entered a five-year distribution agreement with DreamWorks Animation, which began in 2013, after their distribution deal with Paramount Pictures ended with the 2012 release of Rise of the Guardians. DreamWorks Animation's first film to be distributed under the new agreement was The Croods.

Fox Stage Productions was formed in June 2013. In August, the same year, 20th Century Fox started a theatrical joint venture with a trio of producers, both film and theater, Kevin McCollum, John Davis and Tom McGrath.

In June 2014, Rupert Murdoch made a $80 billion bid to acquire Time Warner, 30 years after his original failed bid for its predecessor Warner Communications, which led to him instead acquiring Fox. The planned 2014 acquisition would have merged Warner Bros. Pictures and other assets such as HBO with the assets of 21st Century Fox, in order to achieve greater scale. The bid was rejected by Time Warner's board since they believed it undervalued the company, and by August 2014 Murdoch walked away from the deal.

On September 20, 2017, Locksmith Animation formed a multi-year production deal with 20th Century Fox, who would distribute Locksmith's films under 20th Century Fox Animation, with Locksmith aiming to release a film every 12–18 months. The deal was to bolster Blue Sky's output and replace the loss of distributing DreamWorks Animation films, which are now owned and distributed by Universal Pictures, following its acquisition by NBCUniversal in 2016, after their distribution deal with 20th Century Fox ended with the release of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. The first film to be released under the production company was Ron's Gone Wrong, which was released on October 22, 2021, by 20th Century Studios and was the only film to be released by the studio.

Technoprops, a VFX company that worked on Avatar and The Jungle Book, was purchased in April 2017 to operate as Fox VFX Lab. Technoprops' founder Glenn Derry would continue to run the company as vice president of visual effect reporting to Gerard Bevan and John Kilkenny, VFX president.

On October 30, 2017, Vanessa Morrison was named president of a newly created 20th Century Fox division, Fox Family, reporting to the chairman & CEO and Vice Chairman of 20th Century Fox. The family division would develop films that appeal to younger moviegoers and their parents both animated films and films with live-action elements. Also, the division would oversee the studio's family animated television business, which produces holiday television specials based on existing film properties, and oversee feature film adaptation of its TV shows. To replace Morrison at Fox Animation, Andrea Miloro and Robert Baird were named co-presidents of 20th Century Fox Animation.

20th Century Fox issued a default notice in regards to its licensing agreement for the under-construction 20th Century Fox World theme park in Malaysia by Genting Malaysia Bhd. In November 2018 Genting Malaysia filed suit in response and included soon to be parent the Walt Disney Company.

Disney era

On December 14, 2017, Disney announced plans to purchase most of 21st Century Fox, including 20th Century Fox, for $52.4 billion in an all-stock deal. Disney had originally intended to acquire Time Warner rather than 21st Century Fox, but when they reached out to Time Warner in October 2016, they found out that it already had a deal in place with telecommunications company AT&T.

In June 2018, Comcast (owner of NBCUniversal) made an all-cash $65 billion bid for 21st Century Fox. Disney counterbid with $71.3 billion in both stock and cash. On July 19, 2018, Comcast dropped out of the bid for 21st Century Fox in favor of Sky plc and Sky UK. Eight days later, Disney and 21st Century Fox shareholders approved the merger between the two companies. Although the deal was completed on March 20, 2019, 20th Century Fox was not planning to relocate to Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, but retained its headquarters in Century City on the Fox Studio Lot, which leased to Disney by 21st Century Fox's successor, Fox Corporation, for seven years. Various units were moved out from under 20th Century Fox at acquisition in months after the merger along with several rounds of layoffs. The Fox Research Library was folded into the Walt Disney Archives and Walt Disney Imagineering Archives in January 2020. The last film to use the "20th Century Fox" name was Underwater, which was released on January 10, 2020.

After the box office failures of films like Dark Phoenix and Stuber, Disney halted development on several projects, though films such as Free Guy and the Avatar sequels managed to continue production. Fox's slate would be reduced to 10 films per year, half of them being made for the Hulu and then-upcoming Disney+ streaming services. Projects from 20th Century Fox franchises such as Home Alone, Cheaper by the Dozen, Night at the Museum, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Ice Age were later announced for Disney+. These projects would later be fully revealed during Disney's Investor Day in December 2020 as feature films for the aforementioned streaming service. The first of these projects was Home Sweet Home Alone, which was released on November 12, 2021.

On January 17, 2020, Disney renamed the studio to "20th Century Studios", which served to help avoid brand confusion with Fox Corporation. Similar to other Disney film units, distribution of 20th Century Studios films is now handled in North America by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and internationally by their sub-division Buena Vista International, while Searchlight Pictures operates their own autonomous distribution and marketing unit. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment distributes the films produced by 20th Century and Searchlight in home media under their respective labels. The first film released by Disney under the studio's new name was The Call of the Wild, which was released on February 21, 2020. That same year, Ford vs. Ferrari (2019), among its four Academy Award nominations, earned the studio its first Best Picture nomination post-Disney acquisition.

In the same year, held-over production president Emma Watts left the company. On March 12, 2020, Steve Asbell was named president, production of 20th Century Studios, while Morrison was named president, streaming, Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production to oversee live-action development and production of Walt Disney Pictures and 20th Century Studios for Disney+. Philip Steuer will now lead physical and post-production and VFX, as president of production at Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production. Randi Hiller will now lead casting as executive VP casting, overseeing both Walt Disney Pictures and 20th Century Studios. Steuer has served as executive VP of physical production for Walt Disney Studios since 2015, and Hiller has led casting for Walt Disney Studios since 2011. Both will dual-report to Asbell and Sean Bailey.

On September 1, 2020, the Japanese branch of 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Fox Japan, was absorbed into Disney Japan; 20th Century Studios' previous involvement with Toei Company as the Japanese co-distributor and Asian distributor for Dragon Ball films ended and were later taken over by Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Releasing (via Sony Pictures Releasing International) outside of Japan, under license from Toei Animation.

On February 9, 2021, Disney announced that Blue Sky Studios would shut down in April 2021, and that it would be succeeded by 20th Century Animation. A spokesperson for the company explained that in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic's continued economic impact on all of its businesses, it was no longer sustainable for them to run a third feature animation studio. In addition, production on a film adaptation of the webcomic Nimona, originally scheduled to be released on January 14, 2022, was cancelled as a result of its closure. The studio's film library and intellectual properties are retained by Disney via 20th Century Animation. Although Disney did not give an exact date as to when the studio would be closing down initially, former animator Rick Fournier confirmed on April 10 it was their last day of operation, three days after founder Chris Wedge released a farewell letter on social media. Nimona would be picked up by Annapurna Pictures in early 2022 for release on Netflix in 2023.

On November 22, 2021, Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution and WarnerMedia reached an agreement to allow select 20th Century Studios films be shared between Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max through late 2022. The new agreement negotiated by Gerard Devan and John Gelke is an amendment to the original agreement between 20th Century Fox and HBO that Disney inherited after its acquisition of Fox in 2019, and as such, is not expected to be renewed. Following the end of the 20th Century-HBO deal, Disney planned to retain the 20th Century films on their own streaming platforms going forward after 2022. The first film to this new strategy was Ron's Gone Wrong. Also in 2021, Disney had launched a video game based-studio 20th Century Games. Similar to its predecessors—FoxNext, Fox Interactive and 20th Century Fox Games—it acts as a distributor and has partnered with other triple-A game studios. Its first title was Aliens: Fireteam Elite.

On February 8, 2022, Steven Spielberg's 2021 film version of West Side Story, among its seven Academy Award nominations, earned 20th Century Studios its first Best Picture nomination post-rebranding.