The Walt Disney Company is reportedly going to drop the name ‘Fox’ from the 21st Century Fox assets, almost after two years of acquiring the company.
As per Variety reports, the 21st Century Fox film studio will now be known as 20th Century Studios, while Fox Searchlight Pictures will be renamed to Searchlight Pictures.
Further to the report, Variety also mentioned that though the names will be changed, the logos will merely be updated rather than ‘drastically altered’. All its signature elements will be kept as it is while the word ‘Fox’ has been removed from the logo marks. Disney has also replaced the email addresses of Searchlight employees, with the fox.com domain now becoming searchlightpictures.com.
Variety also reported that Downhill, an upcoming film produced by Searchlight Pictures credits beginning with ‘Searchlight Pictures Presents’ and will be the first film to debut with the new logo. In the meantime, another upcoming film titled Call of the Wild will be released under the 20th Century banner without the ‘Fox’ name.
The acquisition gave Disney full control of 21st Century Fox’s film production businesses, including Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox 2000 Pictures; Fox’s television creative units, Twentieth Century Fox Television, FX Productions and Fox21; FX Networks; National Geographic Partners; Fox Sports Regional Networks; Fox Networks Group International; Star India; and Fox’s interests in Hulu, Sky plc, and Tata Sky.
The House of Mouse also recently appointed Jessica Beaton to the newly-created role of director, APAC media and digital marketing after more than six years with dentsu X. Beaton will guide the overall APAC (excluding India) media and digital marketing efforts for the company’s theatrical releases across Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight.