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The 20th Century Fox Logo: A Brief History

Writer Daniel Davis
The 20th Century Fox Logo: A Brief History
  • 1935-53

    The monumental art deco Fox monolith was painted in 1933 by Emil Kosa Jr., a prominent California watercolorist who later worked as a matte artist for the studio — he created the ruined Statue of Liberty shown at the conclusion of Planet of the Apes. Kosa substituted “Fox” for “Pictures, Inc.” in the monolith’s lower course after Fox merged with 20th Century Pictures in 1935. (An homage to Kosa’s iconographic creation appeared in the gatefold album cover art for Led Zeppelin II.)

  • 1953-81

    Rocky Longo of Pacific Title repainted the logo when Fox began releasing movies in the widescreen Cinemascope format, starting with How to Marry a Millionaire. The artist tilted the "0" in "20th" so the monolith would look proportional in the format’s wider aspect ratio. Alfred Newman’soriginal drums-and-trumpets “Fox Fanfare” was amended with a six-second violin coda that ran under a separate card with the Cinemascope logo.

  • 1981-94

    Longo revised the logo again, straightening the "0."

  • 1994-2009

    The logo was reimagined as a 21-second CG-animated curtain raiser, with a POV that sweeps from above the "20th" to a panorama of the L.A. Basin, including the Hollywood sign, and storefronts with the names of Fox executives — including Rupert Murdoch and Peter Chernin — in the signage. The “Fox Fanfare” underscore — with the Cinemascope extension — was re-recorded by David Newman, son of the original composer, Alfred Newman, in 1997. The tag “A News Corporation Company” appears at the base of the monolith for the first time.

  • 2009-present

    A refurbished logo created by Fox-owned CG animation house Blue Sky Studios (the Ice Age franchise) made its debut before James Cameron's Avatar.

  • Director’s Choice

    Over the years, Fox has permitted filmmakers wide latitude to customize the monolith, which has produced such variations as this snow-dusted logo used in Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands.

  • The New 21st Century Fox Logo

    Fox's new logo for its renamed news and entertainment divisions references design elements from Emile Kosa Jr.'s classic. Movies released under 20th Century Fox, as the studio will still be called, will retain the 2009-vintage monolith. The "A News Corporation Company" tag is scheduled to disappear July 1.

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