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Portal:20th Century Studios

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The 20th Century Studios Portal

Former entrance to the Fox Studio Lot in Century City, California

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, The Simpsons, Avatar, Ice Age, Alien, Predator, 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 the latter film breaking the record during its initial release. (Full article...)

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Die Hard is a 1988 American action film directed by John McTiernan, with a screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. It is based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp, and it stars Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, and Bonnie Bedelia.  Die Hard follows New York City police detective John McClane (Willis) who is caught up in a terrorist takeover of a Los Angeles skyscraper while visiting his estranged wife. Reginald VelJohnson, William Atherton, Paul Gleason, and Hart Bochner feature in supporting roles.

Stuart was hired by 20th Century Fox to adapt Thorp's novel into a screenplay in 1987. His finished draft was greenlit immediately by Fox, which was eager for a summer blockbuster the following year. The role of McClane was turned down by a host of the decade's most popular actors, including Arnold Schwarzeneggerand Sylvester Stallone. Known mainly for work on television, Willis was paid $5 million for his involvement, placing him among Hollywood's highest-paid actors. The deal was seen as a poor investment by industry professionals and attracted significant controversy before its release. Filming took place between November 1987 and March 1988, on a $25 million–$35 million budget and almost entirely on location in and around Fox Plaza in Los Angeles.

Expectations for Die Hard were low; some marketing efforts omitted Willis's image, ostensibly because the marketing team determined that the setting was as important as McClane. Upon its release in July 1988, initial reviews were mixed: criticism focused on its violence, plot, and Willis's performance, while McTiernan's direction and Rickman's charismatic portrayal of the villain Hans Gruber were praised. Defying predictions, Die Hard grossed approximately $140 million, becoming the year's tenth-highest-grossing film and the highest-grossing action film. Receiving four Academy Award nominations, it elevated Willis to leading-man status and made Rickman a celebrity.

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20th Century-Fox production logo and fanfare, as seen in 1947

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Joseph Leo Mankiewicz (/ˈmæŋkəwɪts/; February 11, 1909 – February 5, 1993) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career, and won both the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in consecutive years for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), the latter of which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. Comfortable in a variety of genres and able to elicit career performances from actors and actresses alike, Mankiewicz combined ironic, sophisticated scripts with a precise, sometimes stylized mise en scène.

Mankiewicz worked for seventeen years as a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures and as a writer and producer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer before getting a chance to direct at 20th Century Fox. Over six years, he made 11 films for Fox. During his over 40-year career in Hollywood, Mankiewicz wrote 48 screenplays. He also produced more than 20 films including The Philadelphia Story (1940) which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Woman of the Year (1942), for which he introduced Katharine Hepburn to Spencer Tracy.

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Being human is a condition that requires a little anesthesia.

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