Evening star., 1925-04-06
What's Ahead for Business?
No. 8-The Moving Picture Industry Seen
by Adolph Zukor.
By John F. Sinclair.
Author Europe Hold

distinct steps Human speech came
first. Then printing. And now the
moving picture. Thomas A. Edison
invented the moving picture camera
and George Eastman the flexible rib
bon film. To these two men goes the
credit for giving the world moving
pictures
The motion picture business has
become a big business in the land of
big business, all in less than 25 years
The industry scarcely knows how
large it really is. The best obtain
able figures show the following facts:
The investment in the United States
is $500, 100000.
Total number of persons perma-
nently employed in all branches,
800 900.
Average number of feature pictures
produced yearly, 700.
Average weekly attendance at pic
ture theaterS, 50,000,000.
Average paid annual admissions,
81 ,000, 00O, 900.
Number of motion picture theaters.
5000
Theaters running 6 to days a
week, 5000.
Amount of yearly advertising,
IS, 10000
In 1913 the exports were $4,000, 900
Seventh in Industries.
Or put 1t in another way Take
the annual turnover of the big key
industries; the motion picture indus
try is seventh. Here they are in the
order of Importance:
Slaughtering and meat packing
$4,000, ,OO0,OOO petroleum industry,
s1,727, 100000; automobiles, S1,666,-
100000; foundry and machine shops,
81, SOS, 600, 900: steel works and roll
ing mills, S1,4S1 ,000, 900; cotton goods,
100000; motion pictures, ST.
$50. 900, 000
The United States possesses per
cent of the worlds population, yet it
produces 27 per cent of the wheat, 80
per cent of the silver, 40 per cent of
the coal, SO per cent of the steel. cop
per and aluminium. 60 per cent of the
cotton, 65 per cent of the oil, 75 per
cent of the corn and 80 per cent of
the automobiles of the world. And
IS per cent of the motion pictures.
Approximately $1S0,OOO,O00 - more
than 100000 a day-was spent in
the United States in the construction
of theaterS in 1924.
Adolph Zukor is an outstanding
genius of the motion picture indus
try. Small of stature, quiet in speech,
manner and dress, his success cannot
be primarily attributed to personal
compelling magnetism. But he is
painStaking and a master of detail
He knows the motion picture busi-
ness, for he grew up with it.
A Gamble Ten Years Ago.
Ten years ago production of high
class motion pictures was a gamble"
he told me in his plain oak-furnished
office in New York. Five years ago
1t was a speculation. Today it is
legitimate business.
Let me explain what I mean. Ten
years ago we were experimenting
Many commonplaces had not been dis
covered. The industry was entirely
new. We were pioneering, and that
is expensive. We made many pic
lures the cost of which was pure
gamble. Sometimes a picture might
cost five times our original estimate
Neither did we know what the trade
demanded. We did not know how to
estimate returns from the picture.
Such a period was bad for immediate
profits, but good for the long pull in
the industry. 1t was a necessary
evolution.
Standardize InduStry.
To-day we know what to expect
Not only can we estimate cost of a
picture Z IetlL ~ GCCul dlcly, Say "lLnlu
90 per cent, but we can likewise esti-
mate in the same way it's sales value.
That is to say, we are standardizing
the industry and so eliminating the
great risks"
rs the present tendency in the mo-
ton picture play to follow the
drama?' L asked.
"Artistically the basic fact in
drama likewise shows itself basic in
pictures. The story value. the dra-
matte, the human experience, must
now stand behind every picture, ire
spective of the picture ability of the
star of the picture. There is a place
for the melodramatic and spectacu-
lar, but it is a lesser place now than
in the early years of our develop
ment. This is also true of the motion
picture star. We have found that
the literary taste pretty much paral-
lels the current novels and short
stories, SO we also follow such a
tendency in pictures"
Then pictures do not necessarily
follow great stage successes?"
No; formerly that was also true,
but not now. A successful play may
not be-usually is not-a successful
picture. Another thing; pictures now
require immense sums of money. The
average eight-reel picture last year