20th Century Fox Animation is the animation division of film studio 20th Century Fox.

Before 20th Century Fox started its animation division in 1997, 20th Century Fox released its first six animated films, such as Wizards, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (both released in 1977), Fire and Ice (released in 1983), FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Once Upon a Forest, and The Pagemaster. From 1997–2000, they operated Fox Animation Studios, a traditional animation studio which was started to compete with Walt Disney Animation Studios, which was experiencing great success at the time with films such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. The Fox studio, however, was not as successful. Their first feature Anastasia, although critically acclaimed as being of Disney caliber and often mistaken as a Disney film, barely made a profit, taking in $58 million at the American box office on an estimated $53 million dollar budget. Their next feature, Titan A.E., was a large financial loss, taking back only $22 million of its estimated $75 million budget. The lack of box office success, coupled with the rise of computer animation, led Fox to shut down the Fox Animation Studio after 2000. However, FAS still releases animated films outsourced from other companies, such as the recent film version of Fantastic Mr. Fox (from Regency Enterprises).

Fox Animation Studios is an American animation production company located in Phoenix, Arizona and is a division of 20th Century Fox. After the bankruptcy of Sullivan Bluth Studios in Ireland in 1994, animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman returned to the United States and were hired by 20th Century Fox's Bill Mechanic to be the creative heads of the animation studio. Bill Mechanic and John Matoian, President of Fox Family Films, also brought in Stephen Brain, Executive VP at Silver Pictures, as Senior VP/General Manager to oversee the startup of the studio and run day-to-day operations of the division. The studio closed in response to the 2000 financial failure of Titan A.E., however, Fox revived the Fox Animation Studios label in 2009. The first movie produced by the resurrected Fox Animation Studios was the film version of Fantastic Mr. Fox (from Regency Enterprises).

The company was designed to compete with Walt Disney Feature Animation, which had phenomenal success in the 1990s with the releases of films such as Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994). Walt Disney Pictures veterans Bluth and Goldman came in 1994 to Fox from Sullivan Bluth Studios, which had produced An American Tail, The Land Before Time, and both All Dogs Go To Heaven and Rock-a-Doodle, among other films.

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, with hyphen, from 1935 to 1985)—also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox—is one of the six major American film studios as of 2011^[update]. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

The company was founded on May 31, 1935, as the result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation, founded by William Fox in 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures, founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz.

Twentieth Century Fox's most popular film franchises include Star Wars, Ice Age, X-Men, Die Hard, Alien, Planet of the Apes, Home Alone, plus famous TV shows such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama and American Dad!. Among the most famous actors to come out of this studio were Shirley Temple, who was 20th Century Fox's first film star, Betty Grable, Gene Tierney, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. The studio also contracted the first African-American cinema star, Dorothy Dandridge.

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.

Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.

Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television. As a philanthropist, he is known for his $1 billion gift to support UN causes, which created the United Nations Foundation, a public charity to broaden support for the UN. Turner serves as Chairman of the United Nations Foundation board of directors.

Turner's media empire began with his father's billboard business, which he took over at 24 after his father's suicide. The business, Turner Outdoor Advertising, was worth $1 million when Turner took it over in 1963. Purchase of an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 began the Turner Broadcasting System. Cable News Network revolutionized news media, covering the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Turner turned the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a nationally popular franchise and launched the charitable Goodwill Games. He helped reinvent interest in professional wrestling when he owned one of the most popular wrestling companies of the middle to late 1990s known as World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The Monday night show that it put on was the highest rated on cable and helped boost Turner's channels of TNT and WTBS.