20th Century Pictures was founded in 1933 by Joseph Schenck and Darryl Zanuck. Mr. Schenck had previously worked for United Artists, but left to form his own studio with the blessing of his celebrity bosses, who promised to allow 20th Century Pictures to use their distribution system. Darryl Zanuck was leaving his previous employers- the Warner Brothers- due to a falling out with the temperamental brothers. 20th Century Pictures would also get a powerhouse partner in Louis B. Mayer, who invested in the company to get a job for his son in law, William Goetz. Louis B. Mayer offered the new enterprise MGM’s mighty stable of talent, who could be lent to 20th Century Pictures at a moment’s notice.
20th Century Pictures would start things off with a bang. Only one of the studio’s first year pictures would lose money- the rest were extremely profitable. Things quickly went south, however, as United Artists became stingy with allocating its resources and tried to shut out Mr. Schenck from any further investment in the studio. 20th Century Pictures needed to find a new distributor- and quickly.
Meanwhile, Fox Film Corporation had made a move to acquire Loews, Inc. the parent company of MGM. Sensing that such a merger would mean the end of his career, Louis B. Mayer fought back, successfully fighting the takeover. The collapse of that deal, coupled with a car accident and the Great Depression ruined William Fox.
Fox Pictures was bankrupt and had a distribution system. 20th Century Pictures was financially stable and needed a distributor. It was seemingly a match made in Heaven. 20th Century-Fox was born.
