Sometimes you get the feeling this is Mickey Mouse’s world and we’re just living in it.
At least, that’s what the multi billion dollar entertainment conglomerate would have you think as they continue to gobble up everything they can.
In a move at once unsurprising and highly symbolic, the Walt Disney Company is dropping the “Fox” brand from the 21st Century Fox assets it acquired last March.
The 20th Century Fox film studio will become 20th Century Studios, and Fox Searchlight Pictures will become simply Searchlight Pictures.
The original 20th Century Fox was formed in a merger in 1935 between Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Corporation.
That’s 85 years ago.
The company’s art deco searchlight logo and rousing theme song became an iconic Hollywood brand, and the studio released some of the most beloved and successful movies in Hollywood history, including “Avatar,” “Titanic,” “Home Alone,” “Die Hard,” “Alien,” “Star Wars: A New Hope,” and “Planet of the Apes.”
WATCH: Legendary 20th Century Fox Intro:
Insiders characterize the change as rather inevitable.
Disney’s $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox last March included the 20th Century Fox film and TV studios, but not the Fox broadcast network or Fox News, which remained part of Fox Corp. under CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
On the TV side, however, no final decisions have been made about adjusting the monikers of production units 20th Century Fox Television and Fox 21 Television Studios.
Discussions about a possible name change are underway, but no consensus has emerged.
Disney has already started the process to phase out the Fox name: Email addresses have changed for Searchlight staffers, with the fox.com address replaced with a searchlightpictures.com address.
On the poster for Searchlight’s next film “Downhill,” with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell, the credits begin with “Searchlight Pictures Presents.”
The film will be the first Searchlight release to debut with the new logo.
“Call of the Wild,” an upcoming family film, will be released under the 20th Century banner, sans Fox.