A studio system is a method of
filmmaking
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casti ...
wherein the production and distribution of films is dominated by a small number of large
movie studios. It is most often used in reference to
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywoo ...
motion picture studios during the
Golden Age of Hollywood
Golden means made of, or relating to gold.
Golden may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
*Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall
* Golden Cap, Dorset
*Golden Square, Soho, London
*Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestersh ...
from the 1920s to 1960s, wherein studios produced films primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under often long-term contract, and dominated exhibition through
vertical integration
In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply ...
, i.e., the ownership or effective control of
distributors and
exhibition
An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibiti ...
, guaranteeing additional sales of films through manipulative booking techniques such as
block booking
Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Block booking was the prevailing practice among Hollywood's major studios from the turn of the 1930s until it was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in '' ...
.
The studio system was challenged under the
antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
laws in a
1948 Supreme Court ruling which sought to separate production from the distribution and exhibition and ended such practices, thereby hastening the end of the studio system. By 1954, with television competing for audience and the last of the operational links between a major production studio and theater chain broken, the historic era of the studio system was over.
The period stretching from the introduction of
sound motion pictures to the beginning of the demise of the studio system, 1927–1948, is referred to by some film historians as the Golden Age of Hollywood. The Golden Age is a purely technical distinction and not to be confused with the style in film criticism known as
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema is a term used in film criticism to describe both a narrative and visual style of filmmaking which became characteristic of American cinema between the 1910s (rapidly after World War I) and the 1960s. It eventually ...
, a style of American film which developed from 1917 to 1963 and characterizes it to this day.
During the so-called Golden Age, eight companies constituted the major studios that promulgated the Hollywood studio system. Of these eight, five were fully integrated conglomerates, combining ownership of a production studio, distribution division, and substantial theater chain, and contracting with performers and filmmaking personnel:
*
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...
(owned by
Loews Incorporated, owner of America's largest theater chain)
*
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
*
Warner Bros. Pictures
*
20th Century-Fox (later renamed
20th Century Studios
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...
)
*
RKO Radio Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orph ...
*Two majors—
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
and
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the multi ...
—were similarly organized, though they never owned more than small theater circuits.
*The eighth of the Golden Age majors,
United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stu ...
, owned a small number of theaters and had access to two production facilities owned by members of its controlling partnership group, but it functioned primarily as a backer-distributor, financing independent productions and releasing their films.
Sound and the Big Five
The years 1927 and 1928 are generally seen as the beginning of Hollywood's Golden Age and the final major steps in establishing studio system control of the American film business. The success of 1927's ''
The Jazz Singer
''The Jazz Singer'' is a 1927 American musical drama film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length motion picture with both synchronized recorded music score as well as lip-synchronous singing and speech (in several isolate ...
'', the first feature-length "
talkie
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decad ...
" (in fact, the majority of its scenes did not have live-recorded sound) gave a big boost to the then midsized Warner Bros. studio. The following year saw both the general introduction of sound throughout the industry and two more smashes for Warners: ''
The Singing Fool
''The Singing Fool'' is a 1928 American musical drama part-talkie motion picture directed by Lloyd Bacon which was released by Warner Bros. The film stars Al Jolson and is a follow-up to his previous film, ''The Jazz Singer''. It is credited ...
'', ''The Jazz Singers even more profitable follow-up, and Hollywood's first "all-talking" feature, ''
Lights of New York''. Just as significant were a number of offscreen developments. Warner Bros., now flush with income, acquired the extensive Stanley theater chain in September 1928. One month later, it purchased a controlling interest in the
First National production company, more prominent than Warners itself not long before. With the First National acquisition came not only a studio and
backlot but another large string of movie theaters. Warners had hit the big time.
The last of the "Big Five" Hollywood conglomerates of the Golden Age emerged in 1928:
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orph ...
. The Radio Corporation of America (
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...
), led by
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was an American businessman and pioneer of American radio and television. Throughout most of his career, he led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in various capacities from shortly aft ...
, was looking for ways to exploit the cinema sound patents, newly trademarked
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was an op ...
, owned by its parent company,
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
. As the leading film production companies were all preparing to sign exclusive agreements with
Western Electric
The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
for their technology, RCA got into the movie business itself. In January, General Electric acquired a sizable interest in
Film Booking Offices of America
Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), registered as FBO Pictures Corp., was an American film studio of the silent era, a midsize producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began in 1918 as Robertson-Cole, an Anglo-Americ ...
(FBO), a distributor and small production company owned by
Joseph P. Kennedy, father of future president
John F. Kennedy. In October, through a set of
stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
transfers, RCA gained control of both FBO and the
Keith-Albee-Orpheum
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit.
His ...
theater chain; merging them into a single venture, it created the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation, Sarnoff chairing the board. With RKO and Warner Bros. (soon to become Warner Bros.–First National) joining Fox, Paramount, and Loew's/MGM as major players, the
Big Five that would remain for thirty years were now in place.
Although RKO was an exception, the heads of studios on the west coast, the 'movie moguls', had mostly been in place for some years:
Louis B. Mayer at MGM,
Jack L. Warner at Warner Bros.,
Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor (; hu, Zukor Adolf; January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976) was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures.Obituary '' Variety'' (June 16, 1976), p. 76. He produced one of America' ...
at Paramount,
William Fox and
Darryl F. Zanuck (at 20th Century Fox from 1935),
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle (; born Karl Lämmle; January 17, 1867 – September 24, 1939) was a film producer and the co-founder and, until 1934, owner of Universal Pictures. He produced or worked on over 400 films.
Regarded as one of the most important o ...
at Universal, and
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn (July 23, 1891 – February 27, 1958) was a co-founder, president, and production director of Columbia Pictures Corporation.
Life and career
Cohn was born to a working-class Jewish family in New York City. His father, Joseph Cohn, wa ...
at Columbia.
Reign of the majors and the first decline
The ranking of the Big Five in terms of profitability (closely related to market share) was largely consistent during the Golden Age: MGM was number one eleven years running, 1931–41. Paramount, the most profitable studio of the early sound era (1928–30), faded for the better part of the subsequent decade, and Fox was number two for most of MGM's reign. Paramount began a steady climb in 1940, finally edging past MGM two years later; from then until its reorganization in 1949 it was again the most financially successful of the Big Five. With the exception of 1932—when all the companies but MGM lost money, and RKO lost somewhat less than its competitors—RKO was next to last or (usually) last every year of the Golden Age, with Warner generally hanging alongside at the back of the pack. Of the smaller majors, the Little Three, United Artists reliably held up the rear, with Columbia strongest in the 1930s and Universal ahead for most of the 1940s.
Hollywood's success grew during the
Great Depression, possibly because films helped audiences escape their personal difficulties. President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
said of
Shirley Temple, "When the spirit of the people is lower than at any other time during this Depression, it is a splendid thing that for just fifteen cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles". By 1939 there were 15,000 movie theaters in the United States, more than banks; the number of theaters per capita was twice that of the mid-1980s. The cinema industry was larger than that for office machines. While only the 14th largest by revenue, it was second in the percentage of profits that its executives received. Top stars such as
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...
and
Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert ( ; born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin; September 13, 1903July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to films with the advent of talking pictur ...
were paid more than $400,000 a year ($ today).
The end of the system and the death of RKO
One of the techniques used to support the studio system was
block booking
Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Block booking was the prevailing practice among Hollywood's major studios from the turn of the 1930s until it was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in '' ...
, a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Such a unit—five films was the standard practice for most of the 1940s—typically included only one particularly outstanding film, the rest a mix of A-budget pictures of lesser quality and B movies. As
''Life'' magazine wrote in 1957 in a retrospective on the studio system, "It wasn't good entertainment and it wasn't art, and most of the movies produced had a uniform mediocrity, but they were also uniformly profitable ... The million-dollar mediocrity was the very backbone of Hollywood."
On May 4, 1948, in a
federal antitrust suit known as the ''Paramount'' case brought against the entire Big Five, the
U.S. Supreme Court specifically outlawed block booking. Holding that the conglomerates were indeed in violation of antitrust, the justices refrained from making a final decision as to how that fault should be
remedied, but the case was sent back to the lower court from which it had come with language that suggested
divorcement—the complete separation of exhibition interests from producer-distributor operations—was the answer. The Big Five, though, seemed united in their determination to fight on and drag out legal proceedings for years as they had already proven adept at—after all, the ''Paramount'' suit had originally been filed on July 20, 1938.
However, behind the scenes at RKO, long the financially shakiest of the conglomerates, the court ruling came to be looked at as a development that could be used to the studio's advantage. The same month that the decision was handed down, multimillionaire
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in t ...
acquired a controlling interest in the company. As RKO controlled the fewest theaters of any of the Big Five, Hughes decided that starting a divorcement
domino effect
A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect generated when a particular event triggers a chain of similar events. This term is best known as a mechanical effect and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically ...
could actually help put his studio on a more equal footing with his competitors. Hughes signaled his willingness to the federal government to enter into a
consent decree obliging the breakup of his movie business. Under the agreement, Hughes would split his studio into two entities, RKO Pictures Corporation and RKO Theatres Corporation, and commit to selling off his stake in one or the other by a certain date. Hughes's decision to concede to divorcement terminally undermined the argument by lawyers for the rest of the Big Five that such breakups were unfeasible.
While many today point to the May court ruling, it is actually Hughes's agreement with the federal government—signed November 8, 1948—that was truly the death knell for the Golden Age of Hollywood. Paramount soon capitulated, entering into a similar consent decree the following February. The studio, which had fought against divorcement for so long, became the first of the majors to break up, ahead of schedule, finalizing divestiture on December 31, 1949. By this time, there were 19,000 movie theaters in the United States.
Through Hughes's deal with the federal authorities, and those by the other studios that soon followed, the studio system lingered on for another half-decade. The major studio that adapted to the new circumstances with the most immediate success was the smallest, United Artists; under a new management team that took over in 1951, overhead was cut by terminating its lease arrangement with the Pickford-Fairbanks production facility and new relationships with independent producers, now often involving direct investment, were forged—a business model that Hollywood would increasingly emulate in coming years. The studio system around which the industry had been organized for three decades finally expired in 1954, when Loew's, the last holdout, severed all operational ties with MGM.
Hughes's gambit helped break the studio system, but it did little for RKO. His disruptive leadership—coupled with the draining away of audiences to
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...
that was affecting the entire industry—took a toll on the studio that was evident to Hollywood observers. When Hughes sought to bail out of his RKO interest in 1952, he had to turn to a Chicago-based syndicate led by shady dealers without motion picture experience. The deal fell through, so Hughes was back in charge when the RKO theater chain was finally sold off as mandated in 1953. That year,
General Tire and Rubber Company, which was expanding its small, decade-old broadcasting division, approached Hughes concerning the availability of RKO's
film library
A cinematheque is an archive of films and film-related objects with an exhibition venue. Similarly to a book library (bibliothèque in French), a cinematheque is responsible for preserving and making available to the public film heritage. Typica ...
for programming. Hughes acquired near-complete ownership of RKO Pictures in December 1954 and consummated a sale with General Tire for the entire studio the following summer.
The new owners quickly made some of their money back by selling the TV rights for the library they treasured to C&C Television Corp., a beverage company subsidiary. (RKO retained the rights for the few TV stations General Tire had brought along.) Under the deal, the films were stripped of their RKO identity before being sent by C&C to local stations; the famous opening logo, with its globe and radio tower, was removed, as were the studio's other trademarks.
Back in Hollywood, RKO's new owners were encountering little success in the moviemaking business and by 1957 General Tire shut down production and sold the main RKO facilities to
Desilu, the production company of
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedienne and producer. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times, and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Gold ...
and
Desi Arnaz
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986) was a Cuban-born American actor, bandleader, and film and television producer. He played Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, Ricky Ricardo on the American television sitcom ''I Lov ...
. Just like United Artists, the studio now no longer had a studio; unlike UA, it barely owned its old movies and saw no profit in the making of new ones. In 1959 it abandoned the movie business entirely.
In Europe and Asia
While the studio system is largely identified as an American phenomenon, film production companies in other countries did at times achieve and maintain full integration in a manner similar to Hollywood's Big Five. As historian James Chapman describes,
In Britain, only two companies ever achieved full vertical integration (the Rank Organization and the Associated British Picture Corporation). Other countries where some level of vertical integration occurred were Germany during the 1920s (Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft, or Ufa), France during the 1930s ( Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert and Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipment ...
-Natan) and Japan (Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literal ...
, Shochiku
() is a Japanese film and kabuki production and distribution company. It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not ...
and Toho
is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the produc ...
). In Hong Kong, Shaw Brothers adopted the studio system for its wuxia
( ), which literally means "martial heroes", is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although is traditionally a form of historical fiction, its popularity has caused it to be adapted f ...
films throughout the 1950s-'60s. India, which represents perhaps the only serious rival to the U.S. film industry due to its dominance of both its own and the Asian diasporic markets, has, in contrast, never achieved any degree of vertical integration.
For instance, in 1929 nearly 75 percent of Japanese movie theaters were connected with either Nikkatsu or Shochiku, the two biggest studios at the time.
After the system
Star-driven system
In the 1950s Hollywood faced three great challenges: The ''Paramount'' case ending the studio system, the new popularity of television, and
consumer spending providing its audience with many other leisure options. The scale of both box office successes and flops grew, with a "dangerous middle" consisting of films that in the previous era would have made money. A filmmaker stated in 1957 that "
e one absolute disaster today is to make a million-dollar mediocrity. One of these you can lose not only your total investment but your total shirt." By that year Hollywood was only making about 300 feature films a year, compared to about 700 during the 1920s.
Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, had no direct involvement with the studio from 1956 to 1962, and
Louis B. Mayer, sacked in 1951 from MGM, died in 1957.
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn (July 23, 1891 – February 27, 1958) was a co-founder, president, and production director of Columbia Pictures Corporation.
Life and career
Cohn was born to a working-class Jewish family in New York City. His father, Joseph Cohn, wa ...
of Columbia, who died the following year,
[Bernard F. Dic]
''Columbia Pictures: Portrait of a Studio''
University of Kentucky Press, p.2 informed investors in the studio's
annual report
An annual report is a comprehensive report on a company's activities throughout the preceding year. Annual reports are intended to give shareholders and other interested people information about the company's activities and financial performance. ...
of 1957 that:
Most actors became
freelancers after the end of the studio system.
Financial backers increasingly demanded star actors, directors, and writers for projects to reduce risk of failure. The growing importance of the overseas market—40 to 50% of Hollywood's total revenue by 1957—also emphasized stars' names as box-office attractions. With their new power, "working for nothing"—receiving a percentage of profit instead of a salary—became a status symbol for stars. A top actor could expect 50% of profit, with a minimum guarantee, or 10% of gross revenue.
Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...
, for example, received more than $700,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) from his 10% of the gross for ''
To Catch a Thief
'' To Catch a Thief'' is a 1955 American romantic thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, from a screenplay by John Michael Hayes based on the 1952 novel of the same name by David Dodge. The film stars Cary Grant as a retired cat burglar w ...
'' (1955), while director and producer
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
received less than $50,000. In one extreme case, Paramount promised
Marlon Brando 75% of the profit of what became ''
One-Eyed Jacks'' (1961). (Because of
Hollywood accounting, studios still received much of the revenue before any profit sharing; thus, they preferred 50% of profit to 10% of gross.) The larger paychecks also increased the power of
talent agent
A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, broadcast journalists, film directors, musicians, models, professional athletes, screenwriters, writers, and other professionals in various entertainment or s ...
s such as
Lew Wasserman
Lewis Robert Wasserman (March 22, 1913 – June 3, 2002) was an American talent agent and studio executive, described as "the last of the legendary movie moguls" and "arguably the most powerful and influential Hollywood titan in the four decades ...
of
MCA
MCA may refer to:
Astronomy
* Mars-crossing asteroid, an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars
Aviation
* Minimum crossing altitude, a minimum obstacle crossing altitude for fixes on published airways
* Medium Combat Aircraft, a 5th gene ...
, whose office was now nicknamed "
Fort Knox
Fort Knox is a United States Army installation in Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. It is adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the United States' official gold r ...
".
By 1957, independent producers made 50% of full-length American films. Beyond working for others, top actors such as
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood ...
and
Frank Sinatra created their own production companies and purchased scripts. Top independent directors
George Stevens,
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Holl ...
, and
William Wyler
William Wyler (; born Willi Wyler (); July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a Swiss-German-American film director and producer who won the Academy Award for Best Director three times, those being for '' Mrs. Miniver'' (1942), '' The Best Years o ...
also saw their paychecks increase, in part because their involvement attracted star actors. Studios increasingly provided funding and facilities to independent producers as opposed to making their own films, or just like United Artists, they focused on distribution. While television had damaged Hollywood, TV production companies such as
Desilu and the film studios' own TV divisions helped save the industry by using otherwise-unused facilities.
Syndication, television, recession, and conglomerate Hollywood
At the beginning of the 1960s the major studios began to reissue older films for syndication and transformed into mainly producing telefilms and
b-movies to supply TV's demand for programming.
Between 1969 and 1971 the industry underwent a severe recession, due in part to big-budget flops, but soon recovered artistically with such films as ''
The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 The Godfather (novel), novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al ...
'' (1972) and ''
Chinatown'' (1974).
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spi ...
's 1975
Jaws and
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and '' Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chai ...
's ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various film ...
'' (1977) became the prototype for the modern
blockbuster
Blockbuster or Block Buster may refer to:
*Blockbuster (entertainment) a term coined for an extremely successful movie, from which most other uses are derived.
Corporations
* Blockbuster (retailer), a defunct video and game rental chain
** Blo ...
.
[ Prior to ''Jaws'', most films would initially be released in a few key cities, and would later spread to "secondary markets" across the country based on the response in those markets — a system called "platforming."][ ''Jaws'' was instead immediately released simultaneously across the country, and backed by a $700,000 TV advertizing budget — the first time that trailers were released on network television — along with extensive promotional merchandizing.][ The release of films at hundreds of venues became the norm, with hits such as the sequels to Lucas's ''Star Wars'', '']The Empire Strikes Back
''The Empire Strikes Back'' (also known as ''Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back'') is a 1980 American epic space opera film directed by Irvin Kershner from a screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, based on a sto ...
'' and ''Return of the Jedi
''Return of the Jedi'' (also known as ''Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi'' is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand. The screenplay is by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas from a story by Lucas, who w ...
'', Spielberg's back-to-back successes with ''Raiders of the Lost Ark
''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Lawrence Kasdan, based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. It stars Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, R ...
'' and ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (or simply ''E.T.'') is a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, d ...
'', and the development of home-video and cable television. Meanwhile, the uncontrolled budget of '' Heaven's Gate'' (1980), and its limited box-office revenue, led to the sale of United Artists.
From 1990 to 1995, New Hollywood turned into more of a conglomerate Hollywood and quickly dominating the entire global entertainment industry.[
Today, three of the Golden Age majors—Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros.—continue to exist as major Hollywood studio entities, all of which were taken over by many different companies that were acquired by and merged with larger media conglomerates. Furthermore to date, ]Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
's Walt Disney Studios has emerged as a major, while Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
merged Columbia and TriStar to form Sony Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acq ...
, resulting in a "Big Six" until the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney announced in late 2017 was completed in early 2019, becoming a "Big Five" once again. Not including Disney and Sony, all of these so-called major studios are essentially based on the model not of the classic Big Five, but of the old United Artists: that is, they are primarily backer-distributors (and physical studio leasers) rather than actual production companies.
In 1996, Time Warner acquired the once-independent New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after ...
via its purchase of Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (alternatively known as Turner Entertainment Networks from 2019 until 2022) was an American television and media conglomerate. Founded by Ted Turner and based in Atlanta, Georgia, it merged with Time Warner (l ...
. In 2008, New Line was merged into Warner Bros., where it continues to exist as a subsidiary. Each of today's Big Five controls quasi-independent " arthouse" divisions, such as Paramount Vantage
Paramount Vantage (also known as Paramount Classics) was a film distribution label of Paramount Pictures (which, in turn, has Paramount Global as its parent company), charged with producing, purchasing, distributing and marketing films, generall ...
. Miramax Films (which originally was an independent studio) was owned by Disney until 2010. Most also have divisions that focus on genre movies, B movies either literally by virtue of their low budgets, or spiritually—for instance, Sony's Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American brand name used by Sony Pictures' Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group, a subsidiary of Japanese multinational conglomerate, Sony Group Corporation. It has served several different purposes for its parent ...
. One so-called indie division, Universal's Focus Features
Focus Features LLC is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast as part of Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in t ...
, releases arthouse films under that primary brand. Both Focus and Disney's arthouse division, Searchlight Pictures
Searchlight Pictures, Inc. is an American film production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is part of the Walt Disney Company. Founded in 1994 as Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc. for 20th Century Fox (later 20th Century Stu ...
, are large enough to qualify as mini-majors. Two large independent firms also qualify as mini-majors, Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian- American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquarter ...
and Metro Goldwyn Mayer. They stand somewhere between latter-day versions of the old "major-minor"—just like Columbia and Universal were in the 1930s and 1940s, except Lionsgate and The W.C. have about half their market share—and leading Golden Age independent production outfits such as Samuel Goldwyn Inc. and the companies of David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick (May 10, 1902June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and ''Rebecca'' (1940), both of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture.
E ...
.
Independent era and the beginning of the Second Decline
In the mid-2010s, major studios shifted towards producing mainstream films that appeal to the audience (genre films, sequels, 3-D
3-D, 3D, or 3d may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Relating to three-dimensionality
* Three-dimensional space
** 3D computer graphics, computer graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data
** 3D film, a ...
, and superhero films). Many of these films risk losing money at the box-office (and some, in fact, have). This, in part, precipitated the Second Decline, as most audiences began to turn away from going to movie theatres. With this new decline, an opportunity opened up for independent companies to produce films that in recent years have upset other major studio films for the Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only categor ...
. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion ...
(which produces the annual Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
) generally award Best Picture Oscars to films of substance and high quality rather than the popular mainstream film. In recent years, the multiple award wins for independent films such as '' Spotlight'' ( Open Road, 2015), ''Moonlight
Moonlight consists of mostly sunlight (with little earthlight) reflected from the parts of the Moon's surface where the Sun's light strikes.
Illumination
The intensity of moonlight varies greatly depending on the lunar phase, but even the ...
'' ( A24, 2016), ''Parasite
Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of lif ...
'' ( CJ/Neon
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypt ...
, 2019), and '' CODA'' (Apple TV+
Apple TV+ is an American subscription streaming service owned and operated by Apple Inc. Launched on November 1, 2019, it offers a selection of original production film and television series called Apple Originals. The service was announced ...
, 2021) had a major impact on box-office intake of other major studio films, and possibly the fate of major studios themselves, and even so today with the latest wave of independent films. This continuing dominance of the independent film is proof that its success is not dependent on any film format, whether it be 3-D, CinemaScope, or any large-format such as IMAX
IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating.
Graem ...
. The recent outcomes of the Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...
and the lack of American films winning these awards may also have affected the dominance of independent film.
The current COVID-19 crisis has also contributed to the current decline, as more and more audiences began switching from movie theatres to streaming services such as Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
, Hulu
Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television seri ...
, and the aforementioned Apple TV+.
See also
* Pre-Code Hollywood
Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...
References
Sources
Published
* Bergan, Ronald (1986). ''The United Artists Story.'' New York: Crown.
* Chapman, James (2003). ''Cinemas of the World: Film and Society from 1895 to the Present.'' London: Reaktion Books.
* Finler, Joel W. (1988). ''The Hollywood Story.'' New York: Crown.
* Goodwin, Doris Kearns (1987). ''The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.'' New York: Simon and Schuster.
* Hirschhorn, Clive (1979). ''The Warner Bros. Story.'' New York: Crown.
* Jewell, Richard B., with Vernon Harbin (1982). ''The RKO Story.'' New York: Arlington House/Crown.
* Orbach, Barak Y. (2004). "Antitrust and Pricing in the Motion Picture Industry," ''Yale Journal on Regulation'' vol. 21, no. 2, summer (availabl
online
.
* Regev, Ronnie (2018). ''Working in Hollywood: How the Studio System Turned Creativity into Labor.'' Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
* Schatz, Thomas (1998 988
Year 988 ( CMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* Fall – Emperor Basil II, supported by a contingent of 6,000 Varangians ...
. ''The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era'' London: Faber and Faber.
* Schatz, Thomas (1999 997. ''Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s.'' Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Utterson, Andrew (2005). ''Technology and Culture—The Film Reader.'' New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. {{ISBN, 0-415-31984-6
Online
Authored
* Brand, Paul (2005)
"'Nice Town. I'll Take It': Howard Hughes Revisited"
''Bright Lights Film Journal'' 47, February.
* Freiberg, Freda (2000)
''Screening the Past'' 11, November 1.
Archival
detailed history from the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers research archive.
20th century in American cinema
American film studios
History of film
History of Hollywood, Los Angeles
Cinema of Southern California