It hasn’t fully been a year yet and the effects of Fox merging with Disney don’t totally feel real. Or that The Simpsons would have predicted it correctly (as in the header above). You look out at the film landscape and things feel the same. The most noticeable shift may be seeing 20th Century Fox titles in with the regular Disney catalog on Disney+. There is one place where the changing of the guard is taking place and surprisingly it only took one word to make a monumental shift.
According to Variety, Disney had put the final kibosh on its acquisitions, by kicking the “Fox” out of the brand names. From now on the two movie studios will be known as 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures. That may feel like a relatively little move, but it speaks volumes. 20th Century Fox was initially established in 1935. The basis for that company, Fox Film, started in 1915, which was 8 years before Disney came around.
If anything, this move goes towards those studio houses moving forward without much confusion. You get films originally licensed by 20th Century will still get bandied about under that banner (much how Columbia does for Sony) and Searchlight to keep their indie cred in tact. It just more so solidifies their overall footing up against the aforementioned Sony and Warner Bros. An overall weird thought, when everyone has been focused on everything Disney has snatched up. So ends one era as another, stranger thing begins to take shape. The best we can hope for is a smooth transition and a number of great films in the process. Fingers crossed.
