| Type | Division of 20th Century Fox |
|---|---|
| Industry | CGI animation Motion pictures |
| Founded | 1994 (original company; defunct 2000) 2009 (current company) |
| Founder(s) | Don Bluth Gary Goldman Stephen Brain |
| Headquarters | Phoenix, Arizona |
| Products | Animated features |
| Owner(s) | News Corporation |
| Parent | 20th Century Fox |
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 ultimately closed down 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).
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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.[1]
Before Don Bluth came to Fox, Bluth released three animated features during the 1990s which were produced by outside studios - FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Once Upon a Forest, and The Pagemaster, all of which did poorly at the box office. Even before, Fox distributed two Ralph Bakshi features, Wizards and Fire and Ice, and Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure by Richard Williams.
The studio's films were not as successful as Disney's animated movies were. Only one of its two theatrical releases, Anastasia (1997), turned a profit. Its other theatrical release Titan A.E. (2000) made only $9,376,845 in its opening weekend, with an estimated production budget of $75,000,000. Almost a year before the release of Titan A.E. 20th Century Fox laid off three hundred of the 380 people at the studio[2] in order to "make films more efficiently"[3] and in summer 2000 the studio was shut down.[4] The last film set to be made was going to be an adaptation of Wayne Barlowe's illustrated novel Barlowe's Inferno and it was set to be done with near complete CGI.[5]
Fox Animation Studios' only other productions were two direct-to-video sequels to Anastasia and FernGully, Bartok the Magnificent and FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue. Bluth and Goldman were considered to produce Ice Age as a cel animated film, but passed on the script.
David Mickey Evans director of The Sandlot wrote a script titled The Fountain of Truth and was set to direct it, but the project was shelved.
20th Century Fox announced the revival of the Fox Animation Studios label on July 30, 2009, which began with the release of Fantastic Mr. Fox in November 2009. Their next animated features not to be produced by Blue Sky Studios, Welcome to the Jungle, Walking with Dinosaurs and Mr. Men, are currently in production.
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