Disney will drop the Fox from its recently acquired movie studios 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Industry publication Variety, which initially reported the name change, said the decision was seen as inevitable in order to remove the brand confusion with Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and Fox TV network.

Disney acquired both studios last year as part of a US$71 billion ($103 billion) purchase of Fox's entertainment business and will still run them as separate studios within the company.

Some recent films produced by the Disney-owned studios include Ford v Ferrari, Bohemian Rhapsody and Jojo Rabbit.

The movie studios' logos will remain largely unchanged except for the removal of the Fox name.

The new branding will appear on the upcoming release of the films Downhill, starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Call of the Wild, with Harrison Ford.

The Searchlight Pictures logo post-Disney rebrand, removing the word Fox. ( Supplied )

According to the New York Times, employees of the main movie studio this week received new email addresses @20thcenturystudios — without the "Fox".

As for Searchlight staff, their addresses have had the fox.com address replaced by a searchlightpictures.com address, Variety reported.

The company 20th Century Fox was formed as a merger of Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures in 1935.

Mr Murdoch purchased 20th Century Fox in the mid-1980s, along with a raft of Metromedia television stations, which became the Fox broadcast network.

ABC/AP