Studio system
Encyclopedia
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood
from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studio
s (a) producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking
lots with creative personnel under often long-term contract and (b) pursuing vertical integration
through ownership or effective control of distributors
and movie theaters, guaranteeing additional sales of films through manipulative booking techniques
. A 1948 Supreme Court ruling
against those distribution and exhibition practices hastened the end of the studio system. In 1954, the last of the operational links between a major production studio and theater chain was broken and the era of the studio system was officially over. The period stretching from the introduction of sound
to the court ruling and the beginning of the studio breakups, 1927/29–1948/49, is commonly known as the Golden Age of Hollywood.
During the Golden Age, eight companies constituted the so-called 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: Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century-Fox), Loew’s Incorporated
(owner of America's largest theater circuit and parent company to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
), Paramount Pictures
, RKO Radio Pictures, and Warner Bros.
Two majors—Universal Pictures
and Columbia Pictures
—were similarly organized, though they never owned more than small theater circuits. The eighth of the Golden Age majors, United Artists
, owned a few theaters and had access to two production facilities owned by members of its controlling partnership group, but it functioned primarily as a backer-distributor, loaning money to independent producers and releasing their films.
, the first feature-length "talkie" (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 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 135 acre (0.5463261 km²) 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
. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA
), led by David Sarnoff
, was looking for ways to exploit the cinema sound patents, newly trademarked RCA Photophone
, owned by its parent company, General Electric
. As the leading film production companies were all preparing to sign exclusive agreements with Western Electric
for their technology, RCA got into the movie business itself. In January, General Electric acquired a sizable interest in Film Booking Offices of America
(FBO), a distributor and small production company owned by Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the future president. In October, through a set of stock
transfers, RCA gained control of both FBO and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum
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 rule Hollywood—and thus much of world cinema—for decades to follow were now complete.
, 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 attractive film, the rest a mix of A-budget pictures of dubious quality and B movies. 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 was being looked at as something that could be turned to the studio's advantage. The same month that the decision was handed down, movie-crazy multimillionaire Howard Hughes
had 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 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. The Golden Age was over. 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
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 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 the gig was up. The tiremen shut down production and unloaded the main RKO facilities, which were purchased by Lucille Ball
and Desi Arnaz
's company, Desilu. 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.
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.
. Hollywood's recovery began in the 1980s with mega-hits such as The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, and the development of home-video and cable television. From 1990 to 1995, New Hollywood turned into more of a conglomerate Hollywood and quickly dominating the global entertainment industry.
As of 2007, five of the Golden Age majors continue to exist as major Hollywood studio entities, each as part of a larger media conglomerate: Columbia (owned by Sony
), 20th Century Fox (owned by News Corporation
), Warner Bros. (owned by Time Warner
), Paramount (owned by Viacom
), and Universal (owned by Comcast
/NBC Universal
). In addition, The Walt Disney Company
's Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group
has emerged as a major, resulting in a "Big Six." With the exception of Disney, 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.
Sony, in addition to ownership of Columbia, also has effective control of the relatively small latter-day incarnation of MGM and its subsidiary UA; under the Sony umbrella, MGM/UA operates as a "mini-major," nominally independent of but closely associated with Columbia. In 1996, Time Warner acquired the once-independent New Line Cinema
via its purchase of Turner Broadcasting System
. In 2008, New Line was merged into Warner Bros., where it continues to exist as a subsidiary. Each of today's Big Six controls quasi-independent "arthouse" divisions, such as Paramount Vantage
and Disney's Miramax Films
(which originally was an independent studio). 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
and Buena Vista's Hollywood Pictures
brand. One so-called indie division, Universal's Focus Features
, releases arthouse films under that primary brand. Both Focus and Fox's arthouse division, Fox Searchlight, are large enough to qualify as mini-majors. Two large independent firms also qualify as mini-majors, Lionsgate
and The Weinstein Company
. They stand somewhere between latter-day versions of the old "major-minor"—like Columbia and Universal in the 1930s and 1940s, except Lionsgate and The W.C. have about half their market share—and leading Golden Age independent production outfits like Samuel Goldwyn Inc.
and the companies of David O. Selznick
.
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studio
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
s (a) producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...
lots with creative personnel under often long-term contract and (b) pursuing vertical integration
Vertical integration
In microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or service, and the products combine to...
through ownership or effective control of distributors
Film distributor
A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing...
and movie theaters, guaranteeing additional sales of films through manipulative booking techniques
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 United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc....
. A 1948 Supreme Court ruling
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 US 131 was a landmark United States Supreme Court anti-trust case that decided the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would...
against those distribution and exhibition practices hastened the end of the studio system. In 1954, the last of the operational links between a major production studio and theater chain was broken and the era of the studio system was officially over. The period stretching from the introduction of sound
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with 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 decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
to the court ruling and the beginning of the studio breakups, 1927/29–1948/49, is commonly known as the Golden Age of Hollywood.
During the Golden Age, eight companies constituted the so-called 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: Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century-Fox), Loew’s Incorporated
Loews Cineplex Entertainment
Loews Theatres, aka Loews Incorporated , founded in 1904 by Marcus Loew and Brantford Schwartz, was the oldest theater chain operating in North America until it merged with AMC Theatres on January 26, 2006. From 1924 until 1959, it was also the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. The...
(owner of America's largest theater circuit and parent company to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
), Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, RKO Radio Pictures, and Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Two majors—Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
and Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
—were similarly organized, though they never owned more than small theater circuits. The eighth of the Golden Age majors, United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
, owned a few theaters and had access to two production facilities owned by members of its controlling partnership group, but it functioned primarily as a backer-distributor, loaning money to independent producers 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 SingerThe Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
, the first feature-length "talkie" (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
The Singing Fool is a 1928 musical drama Part-Talkie motion picture which was released by Warner Brothers. The film starred Al Jolson and was a follow-up to his previous film, The Jazz Singer...
, The Jazz Singers even more profitable follow-up, and Hollywood's first "all-talking" feature, Lights of New York
Lights of New York (1928 film)
Lights of New York was the first all-talking feature film, released by Warner Brothers and directed by Bryan Foy. The film, which cost only $23,000 to produce, grossed over $1,000,000. It was also the first film to define the crime genre...
. 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
First National
First National was an association of independent theater owners in the United States that expanded from exhibiting movies to distributing them, and eventually to producing them as a movie studio, called First National Pictures, Inc. It later merged with Warner Bros.-Early history:The First National...
production company, more prominent than Warners itself not long before. With the First National acquisition came not only a 135 acre (0.5463261 km²) 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
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
), led by David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
, was looking for ways to exploit the cinema sound patents, newly trademarked RCA Photophone
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 a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
, owned by its parent company, General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
. As the leading film production companies were all preparing to sign exclusive agreements with Western Electric
Western Electric
Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...
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
Film Booking Offices of America was an American film studio of the silent era, a producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began as Robertson-Cole , the American division of a British import–export company...
(FBO), a distributor and small production company owned by Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the future president. In October, through a set of stock
Stock
The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...
transfers, RCA gained control of both FBO and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum
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, Inc..-History:...
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 rule Hollywood—and thus much of world cinema—for decades to follow were now complete.
Reign of the majors
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 Warners 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.The end of the system and the death of RKO
One of the techniques used to support the studio system was block bookingBlock 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 United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc....
, 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 attractive film, the rest a mix of A-budget pictures of dubious quality and B movies. On May 4, 1948, in a federal antitrust suit known as the Paramount case
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 US 131 was a landmark United States Supreme Court anti-trust case that decided the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would...
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 was being looked at as something that could be turned to the studio's advantage. The same month that the decision was handed down, movie-crazy multimillionaire Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
had 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 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
Consent decree
A consent decree is a final, binding judicial decree or judgment memorializing a voluntary agreement between parties to a suit in return for withdrawal of a criminal charge or an end to a civil litigation...
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. The Golden Age was over. 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
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
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
General Tire
The General Tire and Rubber Company is an American manufacturer of tires for motor vehicles.General Tire was founded in 1915 in Akron, Ohio by William F. O'Neil. Products included the low-pressure "General Balloon Jumbo" and the "Dual 90" tire...
, which was expanding its small, decade-old broadcasting division, approached Hughes concerning the availability of RKO's film library 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 the gig was up. The tiremen shut down production and unloaded the main RKO facilities, which were purchased by Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
and Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...
's company, Desilu. 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.
The studio system 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 OrganizationRank OrganisationThe Rank Organisation was a British entertainment company formed during 1937 and absorbed in 1996 by The Rank Group Plc. It was the largest and most vertically-integrated film company in Britain, owning production, distribution and exhibition facilities....
and the Associated British Picture CorporationAssociated British Picture CorporationAssociated British Picture Corporation , originally British International Pictures , was a British film production, distribution and exhibition company active from 1927 until 1970...
). Other countries where some level of vertical integration occurred were Germany during the 1920s (Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft, or UfaUniversum Film AGUniversum Film AG, better known as UFA or Ufa, is a film company that was the principal film studio in Germany, home of the German film industry during the Weimar Republic and through World War II, and a major force in world cinema from 1917 to 1945...
), France during the 1930s (GaumontGaumont Film CompanyGaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....
-Franco-Film-Aubert and PathéPathéPathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
-Natan) and Japan (NikkatsuNikkatsuis a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...
, ShochikuShochikuis a Japanese movie studio and production company for kabuki. It also produces and distributes anime films. Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada...
and TohoTohois a Japanese film, theater production, and distribution company. It is headquartered in Yūrakuchō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group...
). In Hong Kong, Shaw Brothers adopted the studio system for its wuxia films throughout the 1950's-60's. 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
At the beginning of the 1960s the major studios began to reissue older films for syndication and transformed in to mainly producing telefilms and b-movies to supply TV's demand for programming. Between 1969 to 1971 the industry underwent a severe recession and suffered a loss of confidence felt industry wide, due in part to youth-marketed art cinema and big-budget flops. The onset of Jaws became the prototype for the modern blockbusterBlockbuster (entertainment)
Blockbuster, as applied to film or theatre, denotes a very popular or successful production. The entertainment industry use was originally theatrical slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry...
. Hollywood's recovery began in the 1980s with mega-hits such as The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, and the development of home-video and cable television. From 1990 to 1995, New Hollywood turned into more of a conglomerate Hollywood and quickly dominating the global entertainment industry.
As of 2007, five of the Golden Age majors continue to exist as major Hollywood studio entities, each as part of a larger media conglomerate: Columbia (owned by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
), 20th Century Fox (owned by News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
), Warner Bros. (owned by Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
), Paramount (owned by Viacom
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
), and Universal (owned by Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
/NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
). In addition, The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
's Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group
Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group
Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, Inc. is a corporation which develops scripts and oversees theatrical production for The Walt Disney Company's production companies and imprints. The Group, one of Hollywood's major film studios, is based at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California...
has emerged as a major, resulting in a "Big Six." With the exception of Disney, 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.
Sony, in addition to ownership of Columbia, also has effective control of the relatively small latter-day incarnation of MGM and its subsidiary UA; under the Sony umbrella, MGM/UA operates as a "mini-major," nominally independent of but closely associated with Columbia. In 1996, Time Warner acquired the once-independent New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
via its purchase of Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...
. In 2008, New Line was merged into Warner Bros., where it continues to exist as a subsidiary. Each of today's Big Six controls quasi-independent "arthouse" divisions, such as Paramount Vantage
Paramount Vantage
Paramount Vantage is the specialty film division of Paramount Pictures , charged with producing, purchasing, distributing and marketing films, generally those with a more "art house" feel than films made and distributed by its parent company.Paramount Classics was launched in 1998 and...
and Disney's Miramax Films
Miramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
(which originally was an independent studio). 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
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
and Buena Vista's Hollywood Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Hollywood Pictures is one of The Walt Disney Company's several alternate movie divisions. Like Disney's Touchstone Pictures brand, it produces films for a more mature adult audience than Walt Disney Pictures.-History:...
brand. One so-called indie division, Universal's Focus Features
Focus Features
Focus Features is the art house films division of NBC Universal's Universal Pictures, and acts as both a producer and distributor for its own films and a distributor for foreign films....
, releases arthouse films under that primary brand. Both Focus and Fox's arthouse division, Fox Searchlight, are large enough to qualify as mini-majors. Two large independent firms also qualify as mini-majors, Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California...
and The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company is an American film studio founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2005 after the brothers left the then-Disney-owned Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979...
. They stand somewhere between latter-day versions of the old "major-minor"—like Columbia and Universal in the 1930s and 1940s, except Lionsgate and The W.C. have about half their market share—and leading Golden Age independent production outfits like Samuel Goldwyn Inc.
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...
and the companies of David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...
.
Published
- Bergan, Ronald (1986). The United Artists Story (New York: Crown). ISBN 0-517-56100-X
- Chapman, James (2003). Cinemas of the World: Film and Society from 1895 to the Present (London: Reaktion Books). ISBN 1-86189-162-8
- Finler, Joel W. (1988). The Hollywood Story (New York: Crown). ISBN 0-517-56576-5
- Goodwin, Doris Kearns (1987). The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (New York: Simon and Schuster). ISBN 0-671-23108-1
- Hirschhorn, Clive (1979). The Warner Bros. Story (New York: Crown). ISBN 0-517-53834-2
- Jewell, Richard B., with Vernon Harbin (1982). The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House/Crown). ISBN 0-517-54656-6
- Orbach, Barak Y. (2004). "Antitrust and Pricing in the Motion Picture Industry," Yale Journal on Regulation vol. 21, no. 2, summer (available online).
- Schatz, Thomas (1998 [1988]). The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (London: Faber and Faber). ISBN 0-571-19596-2
- Schatz, Thomas (1999 [1997]). Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press). ISBN 0-520-22130-3
- Utterson, Andrew (2005). Technology and Culture—The Film Reader (Oxford and New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis). ISBN 0-415-31984-6
Authored
- Brand, Paul (2005). "'Nice Town. I'll Take It': Howard Hughes Revisited", Bright Lights Film Journal 47, February.
- Freiberg, Freda (2000). "Comprehensive Connections: The Film Industry, the Theatre and the State in the Early Japanese Cinema", Screening the Past 11, November 1.
Archival
- The Hollywood Antitrust Case, aka The Paramount Antitrust Case detailed history from the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers research archive.