Fox Animation Studios

For the animation studio that used this name from 1998–1999, see 20th Century Fox Animation.

Fox Animation Studios
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	2D hand-drawn/CGI animation
Predecessor	Sullivan Bluth Studios
Successor	20th Century Fox Animation Blue Sky Studios
Founded	August 9, 1994 (August 9, 1994)
Founder(s)	Don Bluth Gary Goldman Bill Mechanic
Headquarters	2747 E. Camelback Road, Phoenix, Arizona, United States
Products	Animated features
Number of employees	80
Parent	20th Century Fox Animation

Fox Animation Studios was an American animation production company owned by 20th Century Fox and located in Phoenix, Arizona. After six years of operation, Titan A.E.. Most of the Fox Animation Studios library was acquired by 20th Century Fox on March 20, 2019. Anastasia is the studio's most critically praised and commercially successful film, as well as the most commercially successful film by Don Bluth.

History

Founding

After the financially unsuccessful release of the Don Bluth Entertainment-produced film Thumbelina on March 30, 1994, animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman were hired by Bill Mechanic, then-chairman of 20th Century Fox, to create a brand new Fox animation studio. 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 company was designed to compete with Walt Disney Feature Animation (owned by The Walt Disney Company – which would later acquire certain Fox assets in March 2019), which had phenomenal success during the late 1980s and early 1990s with the releases of films such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994). Disney veterans Bluth and Goldman came in 1994 to Fox from Sullivan Bluth Studios, which had produced The Secret of NIMH (1982), An American Tail (1986), The Land Before Time (1988), and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), among other films.

Before Bluth came to Fox, the studio distributed three animated features during the 1990s which were produced by outside studios – FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Once Upon a Forest (1993) and The Pagemaster (1994), the last two of which were both commercial and critical failures. Even before, Fox distributed Hugo the Hippo (1975) by William Feigenbaum and József Gémes, two Ralph Bakshi features, Wizards (1977) and Fire and Ice (1983), as well as Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977) by Richard Williams. Also, Fox distributed Asterix Conquers America (1994) in France and the United Kingdom.

Productions

Fox Animation Studios did not achieve the same level of success as Disney's animated crop, due to increased competition from Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, the declining revenues of the Disney Renaissance, and the rise of computer-generated animation. The films used digital ink and paint similar to what Disney did with the CAPS software. The studio's first theatrical release Anastasia (1997) found critical and box-office success, but their second and final theatrical release Titan A.E. (2000) got mixed reviews and was a costly flop, losing $100 million for 20th Century Fox. Nearly a year before its closure, 20th Century Fox laid off 300 of the nearly 380 people who worked at the Phoenix studio in order to "make films more efficiently".

Fox Animation Studios' only other productions were the PBS television series Adventures from the Book of Virtues (1996–2000) and the direct-to-video spin-off to Anastasia, Bartok the Magnificent (1999), along with sub-contract work for DreamWorks Animation's The Prince of Egypt (1998), as well as several other sub-contract productions from other studios, including Canadian animation powerhouse WildBrain Entertainment. Out of all the television shows, sequels and spin-offs based on Don Bluth properties, Bartok was the only one to actually have Bluth and Goldman as directors.

The former headquarters for the studio sat unused and abandoned until it was demolished in 2017. An apartment complex was later built on the site.

Filmography

Title	Release date	Directed by	Story by	Screenplay by	Produced by	Budget	Gross	Rotten Tomatoes	Metacritic	Notes
Anastasia	November 21, 1997	Don Bluth and Gary Goldman	Eric Tuchman	Susan Gauthier, Bruce Graham, Bob Tzudiker, and Noni White	Don Bluth and Gary Goldman	$53 million	$140 million	Template:RT data	61	co-production with Fox Family Films
Bartok the Magnificent	November 16, 1999		Jay Lacopo			$24.8 million	N/A	N/A (3 reviews)	N/A	Direct-to-video release
Titan A.E.	June 16, 2000		Hans Bauer and Randall McCormick	Ben Edlund, John August, and Joss Whedon	Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, and David Kirschner	$75–85 million	$36.8 million	Template:RT data	48	co-production with 20th Century Fox Animation and David Kirschner Productions

Animation services

Title	Release date	Studio(s)	Notes
Adventures from the Book of Virtues	1996–2000	KCET Los Angeles PorchLight Entertainment	TV series; aired on PBS
The Prince of Egypt	1998	DreamWorks Pictures DreamWorks Animation	additional final line animation
Help! I'm a Fish	2000	Wild Brain Lionsgate Films	additional animation services
The Total DramaRama Movie	2006	Wild Brain Universal Pictures	additional clean-up
Total DramaRama: The Movie	2018	WildBrain Entertainment	additional animation

Cancelled projects

See also: List of unproduced 20th Century Studios animated projects

Title	Notes
Betty of the Jungle	In 1995, animator Bill Kopp (creator of Fox Kids' Eek! the Cat) pitched an idea for an original adult animated film called Betty of the Jungle, in which he describes it as a sexy George of the Jungle about jungle warrior woman Betty (set to be voiced by Loni Anderson) and her gun-caring poodle (set to be voiced by Bruce Willis) who battle evil to protect their jungle village. However, after an animation test and conceptual artwork, Fox Animation declined to approve the project.
Dracula	At one time, Fox Animation had planned to produce an adult animated musical adaptation of Dracula, described as a Disney style Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Barlowe's Inferno	A computer-animated film based on Wayne Barlowe's novel of the same name. Was to be Fox Animation Studios' next film after Titan A.E.
Rhapsody	Fox Animation had intended to produce an animated film based on the first installment of the Rhapsody trilogy by Elizabeth Haydon. The story was to tell of a human girl named Rhapsody going on an epic quest with the warrior Achmed and a Firbolg named Grunthor.
The Little Beauty King	An adult animated film directed by Steve Oedekerk, which would have been a satire of the films from the Disney Renaissance. It would predate Shrek.
Over the Hedge	Based on the comic of the same name by Michael Fry and T. Lewis. Later picked up by DreamWorks Animation.
Africa	An adult animated epic film set in Africa. Animator Will Makra posted concept art of the film later on.
Fathom	In June 2000, the reports circulated that Fox was adapting the comic book series Fathom.
Ice Age	Fox Animation Studios was originally working on a traditionally animated action-oriented comedy-drama film set in the Ice age. Around the same time, Blue Sky Studios, a small visual effects studio in White Plains, New York, was bought out by Fox and reshaped into a full-fledged CG animation film studio. In light of this, Fox Animation head Chris Meledandri and executive producer Steve Bannerman approached Forte with the proposition of developing the film as a computer-animated film, which Forte realized was "basically a no-brainer", according to her.

See also

• Sullivan Bluth Studios
• 20th Century Animation
• Blue Sky Studios
• 20th Television Animation
• Walt Disney Animation Studios
• Pixar
• Disneytoon Studios
• List of animated feature films of the 1990s
• List of 20th Century Studios theatrical animated feature films

References

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