Institution Research

20th Century Fox 

20th Century Fox was formed in 1935 as result of a merger of Twentieth Century Pictures formed in 1933 by Darryl  Zanuck and Joseph Schenck and Fox Film Corporation founded in 1915 by Willaim Fox forming 20th Century Fox. 

The company is based out of Los Angeles, California. It is one of the six biggest production companies in US and the second largest film production company in the World, just beaten by Warner Brothers.  

The company went through major financial difficulties in the early 196os, they'd have less successful films in the 1950s despite their rising star Marilyn Monroe and the financial income created by this. The largest project the company created was Cleopatra in 1959, the lead role was originally cast as Joan Collins but the company offered Elizabeth Taylor 1 million dollars to play the lead, she accepted and the price of the production increased even further, this was the start of a steady drain of company finances, the cost of the film's production was over 4o million dollars. 

In the 1950s Twentieth Century Fox branched into television hoping it would broaden sponsorship and increase popularity. They had previously joined the radio industry in 1936 and the music industry in 19

In 1978 ownership was transferred onto investors Marc Rich and Marvin Davis, but by 1985 Marc Rich was a fugitive of the law and was forced to sell his share of the company for 116 million dollars to Marvin Davis. This share was later sold to Rupert Murdoch owner of News Corporation a large company which owns several sub companies in almost every industry owning both The Sun and The Times in the newspaper industry and several television networks, he later bought Marc Rich's share for 325 million dollars. 

2oth century Fox doesn't specialise in a particular genre however they produce a large amount of films in both the romance and the action genre probably because these are the most comercially popular. 

Some example of horror films produced by 20th Century Fox are: The Happening (2008), The Fly (1958), The Omen (1976) and Alien (1979)

Vertigo Entertainment

Vertigo Entertainment is an american independent film company specialising in the horror genre. The company was formed in 2001 by Roy Lee with his business partner Doug Davison. Lee admitted later that forming contacts abroad was the most difficult aspect of starting the contract. 

Roy Lee's concept for Vertigo Entertainment was to recreate Asian horror films in English and pitch them towards american and British audiences. He convinced the Asian distributors to allow him to do this on the grounds that their films wouldn't sell to Asian distributors. 

 

Some well known horror films that were produced by Vertigo Entertainment are: the Ring (2002),  The Grudge (2004), The Departed (2006). 


Both Institutions carry great influence in the horror genre but in completely different ways. 20th Century Fox is a less specialist production company in the horror genre however it's is one of the important  production companies in the world, attracting audiences just through the production company, a company of this caliber would also be able to offer a more significant budget and have access to more successful, renowned filmmakers. On the other hand Vertigo Entertainment specialises in the horror genre, with a history of successful horror films and specialist directors and producers, who know what makes a successful horror film. I think that Vertigo Entertainment would be a better fit for our horror film as I doubt it would cost a great deal to produce and the specialist knowledge and experience, rather than the financial benefits that 20th Century Fox would bring.