Film History of the 1970s Film History of the 1970s 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s The New Decade for Film-Makers: Although the 1970s opened with Hollywood experiencing a financial and artistic depression, the decade became a creative high point in the US film industry. Restrictions on language, adult content and sexuality, and violence had loosened up, and these elements became more widespread. The hippie movement, the civil rights movement, free love, the growth of rock and roll, changing gender roles and drug use certainly had an impact. And Hollywood was renewed and reborn with the earlier collapse of the studio system, and the works of many new and experimental film-makers (nicknamed "Movie Brats") during a Hollywood New Wave. The counter-culture of the time had influenced Hollywood to be freer, to take more risks and to experiment with alternative, young film makers, as old Hollywood professionals and old-style moguls died out and a new generation of film makers arose.

Many of the audiences and movie-makers of the late 60s had seen a glimpse of new possibilities, new story-telling techniques and more meaningful 'artistic' options, by the influences of various European "New Wave" movements (French and Italian) and the original works of other foreign-language film-makers, and by viewing these surprise hits in the previous decade: Lindsay Anderson's If... (1968, UK) Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool (1969) Robert Downey Sr.'s Putney Swope (1969) Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) Young viewers and directors, who refused to compromise with mediocre film offerings, supported stretching the boundaries and conventional standards of film even more in this decade. Although the 50s and 60s were noted for wide-screen epics on CinemaScopic silver screens (and lighter formulaic, squeaky-clean fare such as Pillow Talk (1959) or Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)), the 70s decade was noted for films with creative and memorable subject matter that reflected the questioning spirit and truth of the times.

Motion picture art seemed to flourish at the same time that the defeat in the Vietnam War, the Kent State Massacre, the Watergate scandal, President Nixon's fall, the Munich Olympics shoot-out, increasing drug use, and a growing energy crisis showed tremendous disillusion, a questioning politicized spirit among the public and a lack of faith in institutions - a comment upon the lunacy of war and the dark side of the American Dream (documented, for instance, in the bicentennial year's All the President's Men (1976)). Other films that were backed by the studios reflected the tumultuous times, the discontent toward the government, lack of US credibility, and hints of conspiracy paranoia, such as in Alan J. Pakula's post-Watergate film The Parallax View (1974) with Warren Beatty as a muckraking investigator of a Senator's death. The Strawberry Statement (1970), derived from James S. Kunen's journal and best-selling account of the 1968 student strike at Columbia and exploited for its countercultural message by MGM, echoed support of student campus protests.

Even Spielberg's Jaws (1975) could be interpreted as an allegory for the Watergate conspiracy. 1960s social activism often turned into an inward narcissism, and yet this uncertain age gave rise to some of the finest, boldest, and most commercially-successful films ever made, such as the instant Oscar-winning blockbuster The Godfather (1972) by a virtually untested director, William Friedkin's horror classic The Exorcist (1973) , Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) , and Lucas' Star Wars (1977) . The decade also spawned equally memorable cult films, as diverse as Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and the quirky Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971).

Jerry Schatzberg's and 20th Century Fox's raw, relentless and uncompromising The Panic in Needle Park (1971) (produced by Dominick Dunne) starkly portrayed heroin drug use among addicts in New York City, with Al Pacino in his first major acting role as a drug pusher and part of a heroin-doomed couple (opposite Kitty Winn). Czechoslovakian film-maker Milos Forman's first American film Taking Off (1971) insightfully satirized the adult middle-class and its supposed generation gap from the youth generation. There were also times when expected hits turned to disasters, however, such as the musical fantasy remake Lost Horizon (1973) and Martin Scorsese's darkly expressionistic period musical New York, New York (1977). The Search for a Blockbuster: The "so-called" Renaissance of Hollywood was built upon perfecting some of the traditional film genres of Hollywood's successful past - with bigger, block-buster dimensions. Oftentimes, studios would invest heavily in only a handful of bankrolled films, hoping that one or two would succeed profitably.

In the 70s, the once-powerful MGM Studios sold off many of its assets, abandoned the film-making business, and diversified into other areas (mostly hotels and casinos). Much of the focus was on box-office receipts and the production of action- and youth-oriented, blockbuster films with dazzling special effects. But it was becoming increasingly more difficult to predict what would sell or become a hit. Hollywood's economic crises in the 1950s and 1960s, especially during the war against the lure of television, were somewhat eased with the emergence in the 70s of summer "blockbuster" movies or "event films" marketed to mass audiences, especially following the awesome success of two influential films: 33 year-old George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) Although the budget for Jaws grew from $4 million to $9 million during production, it became the highest grossing film in history - until Star Wars. Both Jaws and Star Wars were the first films to earn more than $100 million in rentals.

[The average ticket price for a film in 1971 was $1.65, and by 1978 cost about two and a half dollars in first-run theatres. Second-run film theatres could charge less and often dropped their admission price to $1.00. The average film budget by 1978 was about $5 million - increasing dramatically to $11 million by 1980 due to inflation and rising costs.

Therefore, production of Hollywood films decreased precipitously in the late 70s, e.g., down to 354 releases in 1978 compared to the previous year's total of 560.] New Markets for Hollywood's Products: The emergence of ancillary markets for Hollywood's products emerged during this decade: cable television - the first pay/premium television channel, Home Box Office (HBO), was founded in 1972; in 1975, HBO demonstrated the popularity of its programming and became the first in the television industry to use satellites for regular transmission of programming, with its "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier to maximize profits from weekend audiences, the industry decided to move major film openings from mid-week to Fridays, in 1973 pay cable television was able to allow profanity and sex beyond what could be offered on commercial network television - outrageous comedian George Carlin's first comedy special was aired on HBO as On Location: George Carlin at USC (1977) with cautionary disclaimers about the use of strong language; it was the first of many HBO comedy concert broadcasts multi-plex theaters - the proliferation of multi-screen chain theaters in

 suburban areas, replacing big movie palaces, meant that more movies could be shown to smaller audiences; the world's largest cineplex (with 18 theaters) opened in Toronto in 1979 publicity/celebrity magazines - after Life Magazine discontinued its weekly publications in 1972, People Magazine - first published as a weekly magazine in March of 1974 (with Mia Farrow on its first cover), took over the role of celebrity watching and film promotion for the industry Hollywood realized that it could increase its profits by advertising its new releases on television - first shown to be successful with the massive TV marketing campaign (of $700,000) for Jaws (1975) - the film was also booked into almost 500 theatres for its opening weekend - a record!

Gone with the Wind (1939) first aired on network TV in 1976 and drew a huge audience over two nights - about 34 million people - the largest ever film audience to watch a feature film on television The Home Video Revolution: earlier in the previous decade, Ampex in 1963 offered the first consumer version of a videotape recorder at an exorbitant price of $30,000; other iterations would follow, such as Sony's introduction of the videocassette recorder (VCR) in 1969, and the introduction of the U-Matic in 1972 in 1972, the AVCO CartriVision system was the first videocassette recorder to have pre-recorded tapes of popular movies (from Columbia Pictures) for sale and rental -- three years before Sony's Betamax system emerged into the market.

However, the company went out of business a year later the appearance of Sony's Betamax (the first home VCR or videocassette recorder) in 1975 offered a cheaper sales price of $2,000 and recording time up to one hour; this led to a boom in sales - it was a technically-superior format when compared to the VHS system that was marketed by JVC and Matsushita beginning in 1976 in 1976, Paramount became the first to authorize the release of its film library onto Betamax videocassettes.

In 1977, 20th Century Fox would follow suit, and begin releasing its films on videotape in 1977, RCA introduced the first VCRs in the United States based on JVC's system, capable of recording up to four hours on 1/2" videotape by the late 70s, Sony's market share in sales of Betamax VCRs was below that of sales of VHS machines; consumers chose the VHS' longer tape time and larger tape size, over Sony's smaller and shorter tape time (of 1 hour) video sales - the first films on videotape were released by the Magnetic Video Corporation (a company founded in 1968 by Andre Blay in Detroit, Michigan, the first video distribution company) - it licensed fifty films for release from 20th Century Fox for $300,000 in October, 1977; it began to license, market and distribute half-inch videotape cassettes (both Betamax and VHS) to consumers; it was the first company to sell pre-recorded videos; M*A*S*H (1970) was Magnetic's most popular title video rentals - in 

1977, George Atkinson of Los Angeles began to advertise the rental of 50 Magnetic Video titles of his own collection in the Los Angeles Times, and launched the first video rental store, Video Station, on Wilshire Boulevard, renting videos for $10/day; within 5 years, he franchised more than 400 Video Station stores across the country in 1978, Philips introduced the video laser disc (aka laserdisc and LD) -- the first optical disc storage media for the consumer market; Pioneer began selling home LaserDisc players in 1980; eventually, the laserdisc systems would be replaced by the DVD ("digital versatile disc") format in the late 1990s VHS video players, laser disc players and the release of films on videocassette tapes and discs multiplied as prices plummeted, creating a new industry and adding substantial revenue and profits for the movie studios.

One film-related industry that side-benefited from the development of the VCR was the pornography industry - no longer would adult-movie viewers have to visit seedy X-rated film theatres to view porn films, and this resulted in sky-rocketing profits from the sales and rentals of X-rated VCR videotapes. Another side result was that independent film-makers and producers could now market their films more effectively by distributing tapes and discs for viewing. But all of these changes had a down-side too: theater attendance would begin to drastically decline in the next decade due to the home video invasion. Changes from Traditional Hollywood Movie Studios: The established Hollywood movie studios (except for Universal and Walt Disney's Buena Vista) no longer directly controlled production. Although studios still dominated film distribution, other areas including production, filming and financing (in whole or part) were increasingly in the hands of independent studios, producers, and/or agents. A new generation of movie stars, including Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Dustin Hoffman - were more skilled as "character actors," who could adapt and mold their screen images to play a number of diverse roles.

In 1975, the Creative Artists Agency was founded by Michael Ovitz and colleagues (from the William Morris Agency) to become a 'packager' of talent for film projects - resulting in the creation of competition among agents. And conglomerate investment corporations were buying up many of the studios' properties as part of their leisure entertainment divisions, with decisive power over decisions about the number of films and which hopefully-profitable projects to choose. All the elements of a film were brought together and packaged - the 'properties' of original screenplay, novel, or stage play were combined with proven box office stars, directors, and marketing strategies. The cheaper cost of on-location filming (using Cinemobiles or film studios on wheels) encouraged more location shoots, or filming in rented production facilities. Faster film stock, lightweight cinematographic equipment, and the influence of the cinema vérité movement brought less formal styles to American productions. The functions of film makers were beginning to merge - there were actor-producers, director-producers, writer-producers, actor-writers, and more.

For example, the decade's popular independent hit and Best Picture winner, director John Avildsen's sports film Rocky (1976) was the first (and best) in a long series of self-parody sequels that featured rags-to-riches actor and unknown scriptwriter Sylvester Stallone as underdog, inarticulate, Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa (inspired by boxer Chuck Wepner) in a "Cinderella" story. [As an up-and-coming star, Stallone had earlier co-scripted and starred as leather-jacketed Stanley Rosiello, opposite Henry Winkler as Butchey Weinstein, in the coming-of-age gang drama The Lords of Flatbush (1974).] The film's hero actually lost his bout after taking a brutal beating from Apollo Creed (inspired by Muhammad Ali), but he 'went the distance' and won girlfriend Adrian! The low-budget boxing film was one of the first major feature films to utilize the revolutionary "Steadicam" developed by inventor Garrett Brown - Bound for Glory (1976) marked its first use.

It was a hand-held camera that produced fluid, unjerky motion shots - during the choreographed bouts and the scene in which the boxer jogged up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. American International Pictures (AIP) (1956) and Roger Corman: This low-budget, exploitative, and successful film company, founded in the mid-50s (and first named American Releasing Corporation), was largely responsible for the wave of independently-produced films of varying qualities that lasted into the decade of the 70s. The studio's executive producers were James Nicholson and Samuel Arkoff, while its most notable and successful film producer was Roger Corman. He was one of the most influential film-makers of the 50s and 60s (he was dubbed the "King of the Drive-In and B-Movie") for his production of a crop of low-budget exploitation films at the time. The studio released their first successful "beach party" films (mostly to drive-in theatres) - beginning with the musical comedy Beach Party (1963) starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon - to appeal to the lucrative teen market.

Teenagers were also Corman's dominant target audience in exploitative films such as Teenage Doll (1957) (aka The Young Rebels) - about juvenile delinquency, and Sorority Girl (1957). As was the case with most AIP films, they were aggressively marketed with publicity campaigns and lurid posters. Corman's own B-movie horror films included a series of adapted Edgar Allan Poe literary tales featuring Vincent Price (i.e., House of Usher (1960) and The Raven (1963)), and science-fiction horror films such as X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963) with Ray Milland. Corman's counter-cultural biker film The Wild Angels (1966) with a star-making role for Peter Fonda pre-dated the popular Easy Rider (1969) by three years, and his The Trip (1967) was the first major studio film to chronicle the effects of LSD.

AIP also distributed a number of Godzilla (and Gamera) films in the 60s and 70s, while Corman specialized in other exploitative science-fiction/horror films and dramas, such as It Conquered the World (1956), Not of This Earth (1957), Naked Paradise (1957), The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957), Teenage Caveman (1958), the satirical black comedy A Bucket of Blood (1959), The Wasp Woman (1960), The Last Woman on Earth (1960), and Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961). Roger Corman ("King of the B's"), and A New Generation of Maverick Directors: "Movie Brats" With more power now in the hands of producers, directors, and actors, new directors emerged, many of whom had been specifically and formally trained in film-making courses/departments at universities such as UCLA, USC, and NYU, or trained in television.

Corman supported this new breed of youthful maverick directors, referred to by some as "Movie Brats" or "Geeks." The AIP studio (and Corman himself) was responsible for giving a start and apprenticeship experience to many upcoming filmmaking cineastes and actors, emphasizing low-budget film-making techniques and exploitative elements. Corman hired the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Peter Bogdanovich, James Cameron, Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro, Paul Bartel, and Robert Towne. He gave many of these novices their first career-breaking employment opportunities, as actors, producers, directors, writers, members of film crews, etc. He encouraged them to produce personally-relevant and creative works of art, and new genre interpretations. This support revived the notion of auteurism (the belief that the director was most influential and responsible for creating a film's ultimate form, meaning and content). For instance, Peter Bogdanovich's directorial debut was for Targets (1968), made for AIP.

And Francis Ford Coppola directed (and scripted) Corman's horror-thriller film Dementia 13 (1963), Coppola's first mainstream picture. Jack Nicholson appeared in a number of early Corman movies, including his screen debut in The Cry Baby Killer (1958) and later a small role in The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), about a carnivorous pet plant. One of Martin Scorsese's earliest-directed films (and his first commercially-conventional film) was Corman's Boxcar Bertha (1972) with Barbara Hershey and David Carradine as two Depression-era outlaw folk heroes. Writer/director Jonathan Demme's directorial debut was for Corman's Caged Heat (1974) -- a memorable women-in-prison film with lots of sex, action and violence. And Monte Hellman's two westerns Ride in the Whirlwind (1965) and The Shooting (1967) both starred Jack Nicholson (who also co-wrote and produced the first film).

Some of the Prominent Movie Brats (or Geeks) of the 70s George Lucas (USC) Film History of the 1990s Film History of the 1990s 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s The Decade of Money, Mega-Spending and Special Effects: In the 1990s for the most part, cinema attendance was up - mostly at multi-screen cineplex complexes throughout the country. Although the average film budget was almost $53 million by 1998, many films cost over $100 million to produce, and some of the most expensive blockbusters were even more. In the early 1990s, box-office revenues had dipped considerably, due in part to the American economic recession of 1991, but then picked up again by 1993 and continued to increase. The average ticket price for a film varied from about $4.25 at the start of the decade to around $5 by the close of the decade.

As indoor multiplexes multiplied from almost 23,000 in 1990 to 35,600 in the year 2000, the number of drive-ins continued to decline (from 910 in 1990 to 667 in 2000). There still existed an imbalanced emphasis on the opening weekend, with incessant reports of weekly box-office returns, and puffed-up reviews and critics' ratings. The belief was sustained that expensive, high-budget films with expensive special effects (including shoot 'em-ups, stereotypical chase scenes, and graphic orchestrated violence) meant quality. However, the independently-distributed film movement was also proving that it could compete (both commercially and critically) with Hollywood's costly output. Pressures on conventional studio executives to make ends meet and deliver big hit movies increased during the decade.

Higher costs for film/celebrity star salaries and agency fees, spiraling production costs, promotional campaigns, expensive price tags for new high-tech and digital special-effects and CGI (computer generated images), costly market research and testing (to develop risk-averse, formulaic, stale, and over-produced films), scripts created by committee, threats of actor and writer strikes, and big-budget marketing contributed to the inflated, excessive spending (for inferior products) in the Hollywood film industry. True character development, interesting characters, credible plots, and intelligent story-telling often suffered in the process. High-Cost Demanding Stars: In the mid-1990s, perks and the excessive demands of mega-stars sometimes reached epidemic proportions for many of the highest-paid stars (including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, Eddie Murphy, Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Demi Moore, Julia Roberts, and others).

They often demanded script approval prior to filming, directorial and other casting choices, approval of the use of images for publicity, restrictions on film scheduling, studio-paid personal and entourage jet travel, various 'extras' (such as a personal gym and trainer/nutritionist, limo service), their choice of the positioning of credits (for example, above the title and in relation to other stars), the inclusion of nudity and other 'body-related' clauses, and final-cut approval. For example, at one time, Jack Nicholson wouldn't agree to filming during LA Lakers' basketball home games, and Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner and Tom Cruise would have the studios pay for their private jets. To promote her film Ghost (1990), Demi Moore (who earned the nickname Gimme Moore) traveled with a bodyguard, masseuse, hair stylist, cosmetician, fashion consultant, and an assistant (who had an assistant). Reportedly, she ordered studio chiefs to charter two planes for her and her entourage while promoting both of her flop movies Striptease (1996) and G.I. Jane (1997).

Her support staff for the freely-adapted $50 million film The Scarlet Letter (1995) was no different, while the movie bombed and earned only a small fraction of its budget. And Julia Roberts (with a $10 million salary) ordered the studio to have a jet ready in London to fly from Pinewood Studios back to the US for the weekend during the making of Mary Reilly (1996), at a cost of more than $41,000 per month--for approximately three months. It became clear that once stars were earning multi-million dollar salaries, a director and a studio could easily lose control of the film, especially when the demanding star was also one of the film's producers. Ironically, however, a highly-paid star in a big-budget film didn't guarantee a film's success. The Digital Age and Home Viewing: The VCR was still a popular appliance in most households (about three quarters of them in 1991) and rentals and purchase of videotapes were big business - much larger than sales of movie theater tickets. Rather than attending special film screenings, members of the Academy of Motion Pictures viewed Oscar-nominated films on videotape, beginning in 1994.

The signs of the burgeoning of the digital age portended revolutionary change. In 1990, Kodak introduced the Photo CD player. And in 1992, the Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, was also made available on CD-ROM. By 1992, broadcast TV was beginning to lose large numbers of viewers to cable-only channels. By 1997, the first DVDs (digital video discs) had emerged in stores, featuring sharper resolution pictures, better quality and durability than videotape, interactive extras, and more secure copy-protection. In just a few years, sales of DVD players and the shiny discs proliferated and would surpass the sale of VCRs and videotapes. And with the digital revolution, some pioneering film-makers were experimenting with making digital-video (DV) films, pushing digital imagery and special effects, or projecting films digitally.

A number of films also used special-effects CGI in more subtle, innovative ways: Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy (1990) was the first 35 mm feature film with a digital soundtrack Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire (1993) included retouched footage of political crowd scenes Jurassic Park (1993) was the first film with DTS sound; other DTS films included Best Picture-winning Braveheart (1995), Best Sound-winning Apollo 13 (1995), Twister (1996), Independence Day (1996), the Star Wars Trilogy 1997 re-release, Batman and Robin (1997), and Con Air (1997) Forrest Gump (1994) used digital photo trickery to insert a person into historical footage, to erase the legs of amputee Gary Sinese, and to enhance the ping-pong game Heavenly Creatures (1994) enhanced its fantasy sequences (visions of the "4th World" called Borovnia - a "heaven without Christians" inhabited by clay people) with CGI Lars von Trier, founder of the Dogme 95 movement, directed the distinctive

 Breaking the Waves (1996) and showed how digital-video (and its hand-held cinema verite look) could be viable for dramatic feature films The English Patient (1996) was the first Oscar-winning American film with a digitally edited soundtrack - two of its nine awards were for Best Film Editing and Best Sound George Lucas' Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) included characters that were entirely digitally rendered, such as Jar Jar Binks Established directors experimented with Denmark director Lars von Trier's Dogme 95 fresh and improvisational approach to film-making, with groundbreaking techniques using digital video, including: Spike Lee's Bamboozled (2000), Barbet Schroeder's Our Lady of the Assassins (2000), Mike Figgis' Timecode (2000) and Hotel (2001), Eric Rohmer's The Lady and the Duke (2001), Richard Linklater's Waking Life (2001), Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2001), Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal (2002), and Gary Winick's Tadpole (2002) Lucas

' second Star Wars pre-quel: Attack of the Clones (2002) was the first major Hollywood motion picture to be filmed entirely with digital video (at 24 fps) One of the emerging trends of the late 80s and 90s was that although about the same number of pictures were produced as in the "Golden Age of Hollywood" (about 450-500 in a year), many of the films that were produced (some estimates say 40%) went directly to video (laserdisc or DVD) or cable with no cinematic theatrical release at all.

And the window of time between a film's theatrical opening and availability for cable TV or home viewing shrunk. The proliferation of films helped to assuage the tremendous appetite for new products demanded by cable stations, video rental stores, the local megaplexes, digital satellite services, foreign markets, and the Internet. In the early 90s, the World Wide Web was born, and home computers were becoming the hot new technology - with vast repercussions for the film industry. [One of the decade's many films about malevolent computers was The Net (1995) with Sandra Bullock.] Groundbreaking Internet Film-Marketing: Case Study - The Blair Witch Project Foretelling new methods of Internet-based marketing, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick's roughly-made, offbeat independent film The Blair Witch Project (1999) (from small-time distributor Artisan Films) was a quasi-documentary about an October 1994 horrifying camping trip and investigation of a local legend that was experienced by no-name actors: three vanished Montgomery College student film-makers (Heather, Josh, and Mike) in Maryland's Black Hill Forest (near Burkittsville).

The cult film reaped a greater audience (and box-office receipts) from Internet exposure and astute promotion and marketing. The 'Blair Witch' website, a popular destination for web surfers (with millions of hits), created tremendous advance buzz (is it real?) for this low-budget film that was directed by a group of students from the University of Central Florida in 8 days. It was innovatively shot on 16mm B/W and color digital video, and basically looked like a home-made film with unknown actors and poor production values. Surprisingly, it easily became the most profitable film (percentage-wise) of all time, grossing $140.5 million (domestic) and $249 million (worldwide), but budgeted at only about $60,000 [a tremendous profit-ratio!]. Remarkably, it had no stars, no large marketing budget, no state-of-the-art special effects, and no creatures/monsters. Many believed that the story was true, rather than the ingenious marketing hoax that it was. Changes in The Major Studios: 1990: Warner Communications and Time Inc.

merged to form Time/Warner, the largest communications merger to date, at a cost of $14 billion. Late 1990: Japanese corporation Matsushita Industrial, Inc. acquired the entertainment conglomerate MCA/Universal for $6.1 billion. 1991: MGM Studios struggled under its new chief Alan Ladd, Jr. (until replaced by Frank Mancuso in 1993). Brandon Tartikoff chaired Paramount (until replaced by Sherry Lansing in 1992). 1994: Viacom bought Paramount Pictures after a bidding war with USA Networks/QVC. Disney became the first studio to gross $1 billion at the box office. Showtime Networks and Castle Rock Entertainment entered into a multi-year, 50-picture exclusive output deal. 1995: Seagram bought MCA/Universal from Matsushita for $5.7 billion and renamed it Universal Studios. Disney bought the ABC Network. Two members of the Creative Artists Agency, one of the world's leading talent and literary agencies, moved to head Hollywood film studios: Ron Meyers to MCA, and Michael Ovitz to the Disney Company (until 1996).

1996: Time/Warner acquired Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), including its cable TV stations and its extensive film library. 1997: Orion Pictures was sold to MGM. A Newcomer Studio: DreamWorks It was significant that the first new Hollywood studio in many decades, DreamWorks (SKG), was formed in October 1994 as the brainchild of director-producer Steven Spielberg, ex-Disney executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, and film producer/music industry giant David Geffen. The studio's first theatrical release was first-time feature director Mimi Leder's The Peacemaker (1997) starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. This was followed by Amistad (1997), Mouse Hunt (1997), Paulie (1998), Deep Impact (1998), and Small Soldiers (1998). Their first real hit was also their first film to be nominated for Best Picture - Saving Private Ryan (1998).

After their first major animated film Antz (1998), they also turned out The Prince of Egypt (1998), the claymation Chicken Run (2000), Joseph: King of Dreams (2000) (direct-to-video), The Road to Eldorado (2000), and Best Animated Feature-winning Shrek (2001). By decade's end, DreamWorks had three consecutive Best Picture winners: Sam Mendes' suburban satire American Beauty (1999) Ridley Scott's sword and sandal epic Gladiator (2000) Ron Howard's biopic A Beautiful Mind (2001) In addition to producing films, DreamWorks also produced TV shows (Spin City, Freaks & Geeks, The Job, Undeclared), and music, including the soundtracks to DreamWorks films and record deals with popular artists. One of the new issues that all studios and other media industries had to confront was the pirating of films, and the illegal sharing/swapping of MPEG music files. Independent Films: Existing alongside mainstream Hollywood film production is that of the independents.

By the end of the decade, most studios had formed independent film divisions (such as Fox's Searchlight division) that would make films with artistic, edgy, or 'serious' social issues or themes, and without major Hollywood stars. Unlike the glitzy Academy Awards Oscars, the IFP Independent Spirit Awards - founded in 1984 - honored visionary, innovative film-makers, and unsung actors and actresses in independent films who "embody independence and who dare to challenge the status quo." Indicative of the times, in the 1996 Academy Awards race, four of the five Best Picture-nominated films (all but Jerry Maguire (1996)) were from independent studios. The Independent Film Channel was launched by the Bravo cable network in 1994 as an outlet for independent films. In similar fashion, in 1995, the Sundance Channel was created by the Showtime cable TV network (in partnership with Robert Redford). Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute (established in 1980) took over the Utah/US Film Festival.

In 1991, it was renamed the Sundance Film Festival (the film festival was held annually since 1981 in January in Park City, Utah and expanded in length) - "dedicated to the support and development of emerging screenwriters and directors of vision, and to the national and international exhibition of new, independent dramatic and documentary films." By the end of the decade, however, independent film-making had become more mainstream and institutionalized - sharing some of the same concerns and corporate worries that traditional Hollywood studios had always confronted. Miramax Studios: The small, independent Miramax Studios, formed in 1979 by brothers and co-chairmen Harvey and Bob Weinstein (the name was derived from the combination of their parents' names: Miriam and Max), produced and distributed independent and foreign, and then - more recently - even mainstream films.

Miramax made a name for itself in the late '80s and '90s by making "art" films and the small independent and foreign language movies that other studios refused to make, including Working Girls (1987), Italy's Best Foreign Language Film Cinema Paradiso (1988, It./Fr.), the UK's award-winning My Left Foot (1989), Steven Soderbergh's sex lies and videotape (1989), Stephen Frears' The Grifters (1990), former video store clerk Quentin Tarantino's heist pic Reservoir Dogs (1992), and Jane Campion's New Zealand pic The Piano (1993). It shrewdly marketed writer/director Neil Jordan's original British film The Crying Game (1992) with a surprise gender twist experienced by Forest Whitaker, earning Jordan a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. In 1993, Walt Disney Studio Entertainment acquired the maverick studio for $65 million - a move that encouraged other Hollywood studios to begin buying up indie production and distribution companies.

Miramax's biggest cult hit of the 90s was Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) , made with a budget of $8 million, and went on to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes and seven Oscar nominations, Miramax Studios then gathered together a stable of hip, young actors including Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon. During the decade, Hollywood was disturbed that Miramax did so well, with the releases of Kevin Smith's low-budget black and white debut film Clerks (1994), Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Sirens (1994), Larry Clark's Kids (1995), Sling Blade (1996) and Swingers (1996), the Best Original Screenplay-winning Good Will Hunting (1997), the Best Picture-nominated Italian film Life is Beautiful (1998), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and The Cider House Rules (1999).

Miramax began an unbroken, eleven-year streak lasting from 1992 until 2002, of Best Picture-nominated films each year, beginning with The Crying Game (1992). It was the longest streak for any company since the Academy limited the Best Picture nominees to five films in 1944. 1992 - The Crying Game 2002 - Chicago - six wins from its thirteen nominations, including Best Picture 2002 - Gangs of New York 2002 - The Hours They also had two nominees in 2004, Finding Neverland (2004) and The Aviator (2004). Since about 1993, Miramax's sister (or subsidiary) company Dimension Films, specializing in horror films and science fiction, revitalized these genres with Scream (1996, 1997, 2000) and Scary Movie (2000, 2001) series.

The Greatest Super-Stars of the 90s: The greatest stars of the 1990s included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Julia Roberts, Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Michael Douglas, Macaulay Culkin, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Steven Seagal, Tim Allen, John Travolta, Richard Gere, Jim Carrey, Winona Ryder, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers, Jodie Foster, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Pitt, Robin Williams, Michelle Pfeiffer, Billy Crystal, Sandra Bullock, Leonardo DiCaprio, Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze, Jack Nicholson, Sean Connery, Meg Ryan, and Meryl Streep. However, audiences were becoming more discriminating and were looking for more eccentric, witty, and unusual stars as well, such as Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, Will Smith, Adam Sandler, George Clooney, Russell Crowe, Ben Stiller, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, Kevin Spacey, Gary Oldman, Steve Buscemi, William H.

Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, and Daniel Day-Lewis. The best-paid female actress of the decade was Julia Roberts, "America's Sweetheart " who appeared in lead roles in both clunkers and profitable films - usually likeable screwball comedies. Her first film appearances were in Mystic Pizza (1988), and in Steel Magnolias (1989) for which she earned her first Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress). She first joined the club of actresses earning a million dollars per picture after being nominated for an Academy Award for director Garry Marshall's Pretty Woman (1990), with her role as a Hollywood hooker in a red-killer dress being romanced by corporate tycoon Richard Gere for $3,000/week. Other film appearances included: Joel Schumacher's Flatliners (1990), the disastrous Hook (1991) in the role of Tinkerbell, the weepie Dying Young (1991), the thriller Sleeping With the Enemy (1991), Alan J.

Pakula's The Pelican Brief (1993), I Love Trouble (1994), Altman's Pret-a-Porter (1994), the critically-assailed Mary Reilly (1996), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Conspiracy Theory (1997), Stepmom (1998), Notting Hill (1999) and a wedding-phobia tale by director Garry Marshall titled Runaway Bride (1999) - reteamed on screen with Richard Gere almost a decade after Pretty Woman. By the end of the decade, Julia Roberts was able to command and equal male salaries - $20 million for her role in Steven Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich (2000), the film for which she won her first Oscar, playing the title role of an underdog single mother winning against insurmountable odds.

Similarly, likeable girl-next-door star Sandra Bullock made uneven appearances in Speed (1994), While You Were Sleeping (1995), The Net (1995), In Love and War (1996), Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), Hope Floats (1998), Practical Magic (1998) and Forces of Nature (1999). The biggest male star of the decade was Tom Cruise, with films as diverse as Days of Thunder (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), the epic tale of Irish immigrants in the late 19th century titled Far and Away (1992), The Firm (1993), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996), Jerry Maguire (1996), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Tom Hanks was also a major star of the decade, winning two Best Actor Oscars (back to back) from five nominations, for Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia (1993) and Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump (1994).

In the 80s, he had found moderate success appearing in Splash! (1984), The Money Pit (1986) and Big (1988) (notable for giving Hanks his first career Oscar nomination), but then faltered in the early 90s with Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) opposite Meg Ryan and Brian De Palma's The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). He then appeared in the baseball comedy A League of Their Own (1992) and then in the big hit Sleepless in Seattle (1993). From then on, his films were mostly quality works, such as Ron Howard's Apollo 13 (1995), his own directed That Thing You Do!

(1996), Spielberg's WWII epic Saving Private Ryan (1998) (for which he was Oscar-nominated), the chick-flick You've Got Mail (1998), Frank Darabont's The Green Mile (1999), two voice appearances as Woody the Cowboy in Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 2 (1999), and in another Oscar-nominated role for Cast Away (2000). Following close behind was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who starred in some of the biggest hits of the decade, including Total Recall (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) , and True Lies (1994). Will Smith (in Independence Day (1996), Men in Black (1997), Enemy of the State (1998) and The Wild Wild West (1999)), Whoopi Goldberg, Eddie Murphy, and Denzel Washington were the best box-office draws among African-American stars of the decade. Film History of the 1990s The history of motion pictures The history of motion pictures The purpose of this lecture: 1.

to provide a brief overview of the development of motion pictures 2. with an emphasis on the economic culture that developed historically. 3. This has meant an emphasis on profits and 4. an avoidance of controversy. I. Early moving pictures Note the term used in the early days of the industry: Moving pictures. Pictures that movied. From the 1850s on, there had been experimentation by photographers and others in reproducing human motion. First short motion pictures arrived in the 1890s. In their first phase, motion pictures emphasized just movement. There was no sound, usually no plot and no story. Just movement. One of the earliest movie shorts was a collection of 15-30 second scenarios created by the Lumiere Brothers, in France. The first movie "shows," which lasted 5-8 minutes, were a collection of these short scenes: a train arriving at a station, a man watering his garden, men playing cards, people getting off of a ferry boat and a street vendor selling his wares. The early Lumiere presentations in Paris delighted people, drawing huge crowds. In the United States, at the same time, Thomas A.

Edison was producing similar short shows (water going over Niagara Falls, waves crashing at the ocean, two trains colliding). By todayï¿½s standards, these early movies were extremely primitive. Weï¿½ve become accustomed to fairly elaborate movie effects (think of the Star War movie series, or the James Bond movies). However, for people at the start of the movie era, even these somewhat primitive films were exciting and highly realistic. For many Americans, the movies brought them their view view of a street car, or of the Pacific or Atlantic oceans. All of this seemed quite real to motion picture viewers. In one film, a train pulled into a station -- coming directly at the viewers. Some theater viewers were scared, thinking the train would come right into the theater; some in front rows panicked and ran out. This first phase of the motion pictures, in the late 1890s and into the 1900s, emphasized reproducing human motion. The second phase, telling a story, began to emerge around 1900. Film makers moved beyond the technical aspects of just showing motino and began to tell stories.

Edwin Porterï¿½s 1903 film, "The Great Train Robbery" is a good example of the story telling nature of films. It is the story of a robbery, with a chase scene and the inevitable capture of the robbers. These early films were quite short, running 5 to 8 minutes long; they were called "one reelers" (they were just one reel of film). In the U.S., these films were produced by a handful of small companies just outside of New York City (Biograph, Essenay, Lubin, Pathe Brothers, Selig, Polyscope, Vitagraph, Edison and Melies). One of the more dynamic early directors was David Wark Griffith. He worked for Biograph in New Jersey and produced literally hundreds of one-reelres in the period from 1908 to 1912. A director like Griffith might be expected to produce at least two one-reel movies a week. The names of the actors were not released, for fear they would become stars and want higher salaries. One early Griffith film was "The Lonedale Operator," in 1911. It starred Blanche Sweet; she outsmarted the desperados.

This video demonstrates some of Griffithï¿½s innovative techniques, including cross cutting (cutting from one scene to another scene, and then back and forth, to develop various parts of a story and to build suspense) and closeups. Some early movie company owners objected to closeups, arguing that paying movie viewers would want to see the ENTIRE person. Closeups, however, could bring drama. II. The Rise of Hollywood Griffith and others in the industry wanted to move beyond the simple formula that characterized the industry in the early 1900s. But industry owners were resistant, wanting to keep to one-reelers and limited story telling. These owners monopolized the industry, thorugh patents on key machinery and cameras and through control over distribution. Consequently, the dissidents left the East completely and moved about as far away as they could get -- to Los Angeles. Well, to a rural area near Los Angeles -- where there the weather was good (lots of sunshine, little rain, so ideal for outside movie work) and plentiful barns (on farms) for inside work. This was Beverly Hills. In Hollywood, Griffith and others began to experiment with longer films, and Griffith produced the first successful full-length feature film.

Birth of a Nation This was the first successful full-length feature film. It cost $100,000 to make (a lot of money in those days, particularly in a small industry such as the movie industry) but it brought in $18 million in revenues. It ran over 3 hours, was popular, controversial and established Griffith as one of the nationï¿½s leading directors. Technically, it was of high quality, with close ups, cross cutting, fadeouts, dramatic lighting. It was a powerful story told with exciting techniques. It was also a highly racist story. The movie was adapted from a book, The Clansman, by Thomas Dixon. In the 1905 novel, Dixon wrote about two familes -- the Camerons of South Carolina and the Stonemans of Pennsylvania. In the 1850s, the two families had become friends; the children of the two families had met; the men had become good friends and some of the family children had fallen in love. Even though the Civil War divides the nation and puts these families on opposite sides, they do not lose their friendship or respect for one another. These are very civilized people.

The problem, as Dixon saw it, and as Griffith would present it in his movie, was the "American Negro." Early scenes in the movie provide an historical overview for the entire era; one early scene shows the first slaves arriving in America and the subtitles note: "The bringing of the African to America planted the first seeds of disunion." "True" union is achieved by the end of the movie, when the two families are re-united thorugh marriage and through white supremacy over blacks. The controversy over the movie comes from its idealized portrayal of slavery before the Civil War and its highly negative view of freed blacks after the war. The movie shows Northern Radicals (after Lincolnï¿½s death) giving too much power to blacks. Blacks are shown as little more than savages, with black men lusting after white women and a variety of other examples of the incompetence or venality of African Americans (shoving whites off sidewalks, running rampant in legislatures). The movie shows the South Carolina state legisltaure under black control (the subtitle notes that there are 102 blacks and just 23 whites in the legislature). The legislature and its black members are crazed.

Black legislators are shown with their shoes off, guzzling booze and eating huge pieces of meant in a sloppy manner. They are also shown leering at white women. The movie shows a state of near anarchy, with a mulatto (part black, part white), Lt. Gov. Lynch, exercising vast power. He threatens the beautiful white daughter of the Stoneman family. Whites unite to defend themselves, their honor and their property. The Ku Klux Klan is born and is presented as an honorable and necessary institution. At first, the KKK is ineffective but one event galvanizes the whites: the death of Flora Cameron. She jumps to her death to escape Gus, a former Cameron slave who has joined the black frenzy. Rather than be ravished by Gus, Flora willingly jumps to her death. The Klan later kills Gus. The KKK saves others from black mobs, too, and restores order. The racism of the movie led to protests when it was shown and, in some cities, riots. Others objected to the fact that most of the "blacks" who appeared in the movie were really whites in blackface.

The significance of Birth of a Nation With "Birth of a Nation," movies arrived in America as a middle class medium (despite the racism of the film). The movie demonstrated the power and popularity of movies; it also showed that huge profits could be made. III. Rise of the Star System Early films, in the East, had not named the actors for fear of creating stars (and thus raising salaries). As Hollywood grew, in the period after 1912, the industry came to rely increasingly on stars to bring people back to the movies again and again. Directors would use revenues from a current movie to fund their next project; so each movie needed to make money. A sure way of making money is to use star-power; stars will draw people again and again. Early stars included Charlie Chaplin. In 1913, he was making just $130 a week, but by 1914, he was getting $10,000 a week ($500,000 a year, at a time when there was no federal income tax). He also got a signing bonus of $150,000.

Other stars included Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Fatty Arbuckle and the Keystone Cops. By the 1920s, Hollywood studios were relying on stars to carry the movies -- and even creating stars when needed. Theda Bara was such created star. Born Theodosia Goodman, she was the daughter of a Cincinnati tailor. She was transformed by one studio into "Theda Bara" -- an anagram for "Arab Death." She was purportedly the love child of a French artist and his Arabian lover. Other stars benefited from the star hype. Rudolph Valentino was highly popular with women, although his popularity was starting to wane some around 1925. In 1926, he became ill and died of peritonitis. He had four movies still to be released and had diminishing popularity. So his movie studio resorted to major marketing of his funeral, paying women to be hysterical mourners (fainting, screaming, etc.). His girl friend suddenly appeared (she had been too busy to see him when he was on his deathbed) and fainted at his funeral.

His first wife, Jean Archer, claimed to have been spirited to his deathbed by none other than the Angel of Death himself. When Valentino died, his esate was $500,000 in debt; with just his portion of the movie profits, his estate made $1.2 million from the four remaining movies. Creating stars continues: Monkees in the 1960s, Village People in the 1970s, Milli Vanilla in the 1990s and many of the "boy bands" in the late 1990s. Stars (whether "created" like Theda Bara or the Monkees, or people who achieve stardom due to their abilities as actors) remain a staple of contemporary movies -- and one of the surest ways of making a movie a success. IV. Structure of the movie industry Concentration of ownership long ahs been a characteristic of the movie industry. 1. Edison and the Trust. Edison and several business allies controlled the industry in the pre-Hollywood era. The result of their control on content: one reelers, no stars, very simple, short stories. 2. Adolph Zukor.

After a short period of flux in Hollywood in the early nineteen-teens, Adolph Zukor emerged as the key controller of the movies between 1917 and 1927. Zukorï¿½s ability to control the industry came from his deal-making and his sense of vertical integration. (a) He controlled production through contracts with stars, directors and producers -- with Famous Players Lasky. Under contract to him were: Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, William S. Hart, Fatty Arbuckle, D.W. Griffith, Mack Sennett, Thomas Ince, Blanche Sweet and Cecil B. Demille. (b) He controlled distribution through Paramount and (c) his holdings included theaters [exhibition]. He had 303 theaters in the U.S. by 1921. Vertical integration: production, distribution, exhibition. 3. The coming of Sound; the Big 6.

With the coming of sound c 1927-28, control in the industry shifted to a few studios (about 6 in all): Loews, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Columbia and Universal (A few others would emerge in the 1930s). These companies did not control all of exhibition, but they had about 25% to 33% of it (mostly at first run theaters). They controlled distribution and production. V. Caution, Self censorship Not a very daring industry. Fearful of government regulation, the industry from the 1920s on has engaged in self censorship (ranging from in-house censors to the current rating system). The industy has also cooperated with some external ratings sytems, most of all that set up by the Legion of Decency in the 1930s. Industry has attempted to please mainstream public taste and to avoid controversy that will hurt it financially. Least Offensive Programming (LOP) VI. Business Practices. The Golden Age of Motion Pictures 1928-1948. Golden Age of American Motion Pictures. Attendance was going up steadily and there were some great movies.

Movies were primarily entertainment in nature (rather than serious or informative documentaries). They steered clear of controversy; they generally avoided depressing topics or too much realism. This was the dream factory. Several components 1. Formula. Movies began to develop into a series of formulas, each of which was successful (although each formula might move in and out of popularity). Formulas included Westerns. Thousands of stories about the settling of the old west. John Fordï¿½s Stagecoach, 1930; Virginia City, 1940. John Wayne emerges as a major star of this genre by the 1950s. Adventure Serials, such as Buck Rogers, Deerslayer, Flash Gordon. Horror Films. On Valentineï¿½s Day, 1931, a struggling Universal Pictures released Dracula. It turned out to be the top revenue grossing movie of the year and the start of a new popular genre of films. Universal followed with Frankenstein (1931); Paramount with Island of Lost Souls (1932) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Others in this genre included Warner Brothersï¿½ Dr.

X, Universalï¿½s The Mummy, The Old Dark House. Horror movies were relatively inexpensive and the salaries of their stars remained below that of the industry generally. Actors such as Boris Karloff drew much smaller salaries than big name box office darws like Clark Gable. So these were popular but cheap movies. Gangster. The films in this genre were inspired by the rise of gangland figures during the 1920s and 1930s, during prohibition. Leading movies in this genre included Little Caesar (1930, with Edward G. Robinson), Public Enemy (1931, with James Cagney) and Scarface (1932, with Paul Muni). Musicals. The coming of sound made possible the film musical. Films could feature dancing, singing - or both. Such scenes could be inserted into any number of stories. In the 1930s, Warner Bros.

relied on Busby Berkeley, a Broadway veteran, to create a series of musical numbers, including Footlight parade (1933), 42nd Street (1933), Dames (1924) and the Gold Digger Series (1933, 1935 and 1937). RKO had Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (popular for their song and dance numbers). 2. Block Booking. Films were sold in blocks; exhibitors had to take the entire block. Take it or leave it mentality; exhibitors had little or no bargaining power. 3. Blind selling. Exhibitors did not know the composition of the entire block. VII. Post World War II Movies. Movie attendance had grown steadily after the coming of sound; but in the period after World War II, movie attendance plummeted. Between 1945 and 1948, an average of 90 million tickets were sold each week; that dropped to a low of 45 million tickets in 1960. What happpened? 1. Television Television became a functional, at-home, equivalent to the movies. Easy to use.

As Americans moved to the suburbs and began having families in the late 1940s and early 1950s, going to the movies involved more effort (getting a baby sitter, etc.). Meanwhile, television programming was improving (with the rise of professional sports on TV, some theater and even opera). 2. Movie costs soar Inflation, rising costs plague Hollywood. 3. Vertical integration ends The federal government broke up Hollywoodï¿½s hold on exhibition in the late 1940s, when it forced the studios to sell off their theaters. The rationale: the studios were operating as a monopoly. The loss of theaters hurt greatly in an era of rising costs; theaters could be very lucrative for ancillary products (popcorn, drinks). Studios no longer had a guaranteed outlet for the exhibition of their films. 4. Innovation. The movie industry responded, trying to woo viewers back with increasingly sophisticated technicques.

These include wide screen (Cinerama) form 1952 on (using three projects and a curved screen, enhancing the illusion of depth); 3-D movies (Bwana Devil, 1952) -- a surprising hit and Aromarama (smells released from your chair, to correspond to scenes on the screen. e.g., jungle smells, incense, etc. Another version of this was Smellovision. Referred to as "the smellies." Other innovations included the drive in, reflecting Americaï¿½s love of movies and of their cars. 1946 there were just 100 in the US; 5,000 by 1956. Family night for $1 (for as many people as you could get into your car). The Province of Quebec, in Canada, banned construction of outdoor theaters until the 1960s -- they were referred to derisively by legislators there as "passion pits." 5.

Emphasis on blockbusters In an era of increased competition from other media (such as TV), movie industry made fewer movies but went for the big hit -- the big blockbuster that was sure to pull in a lot of people and do well at the box office. Movies such as The Robe, Ben Hur were huge, expensive spectacles that did enormously well at the box office. 6. Emphasis on formulas Using surveys to ascertain public interest, Hollywood began to create niche or segment movies. Westerns. Major revival of westerns in the 1950s and 1960s. Golden Age of American Western Film. John Wayne ranked as the biggest box office star in Hollywood with movies such as How the West Was Won, Sons of Katie Elder, True Grit. Early in the 1950s, Gary Cooper ranked highly, too (High Noon, 1952). Other key films included John Fordï¿½s U.S. cavalry epics (with John Wayne) and Fred Zinnemanï¿½s High Noon. Comedy. Light comedies from Doris Day and Rock Hudson reached the top of Hollywood money lists in the late 1950s.

Films of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were consistent top ten box office attractions. Action, Adventure. One of the single most important formulas for Hollywood films. This remains as the single most lucrative genre of film today. Part of this genre includes the James Bond series, the most successful (popular, profitable) series of sequels in the motion picture industry. In the early 1960s, the Bond films began to earn serious money; the 17th top grosser in 1964 was From Russia With Love; third in 1965 was Goldfinger and Thunderball was the top draw in 1966. Bond, a fictional British secret agent, is the hero of a succession of Ian Fleming novels. These make for fast paced, extravagant entertainment with elaborate special effects, location shooting around the world and an overt sexuality not permitted in the early days of Hollywood. Dr. No earned $1.3 million, From Russia with Love, $2.5 million, Gold Finger, $4million, Moonrake, $16 million, Tomorrow Never Dies ($250 million US domestic market). Youth market.

In 1967, the Graduate (starring Dustin Hoffman and directed by Mike Nichols) set off a wave of new youth-oriented films. With the music of Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon, the Graduate proved a film aimed at college sutdnets could make millions of dollars. In 1969, came Easy Rider (cost less thatn $500,000 but finished 11th in that yearï¿½s box office stanidngs). This motorcyle odyssey across the southern United States focused on two drop outs from society searching for meaning in life. Robert Altmanï¿½s M*A*S*H (1970) was extremely popular with this segment. In the 1980s, the youth market included comedy, horror and science fiction. Friday the 13th (cost $6 million, U.S. gross, $50 million) and Animal House (cost $2.7 million, U.S. revenues about $100 million). 1. Switch to TV production. By 1959, Hollywood was a TV town.

Time magazine noted that a single Hollywood show for TV (NBCï¿½s Matinee Theater) hired 2400 actors a year for speaking parts, which was 50 % more than the players used by Warner and Paramount studios combined in all of their 1956 movies. The NBC show used 250 scrips a year (as many as the major studios combined for movies). TV emerges as the biggest money maker for Hollywood. Production companies such as Desilu turned out more footage for TV than the combined output of the five major movie studios. 2. Selling old films to TV. By 1958, an estimated 3700 feature films had been sold or leased to TV for an estimated $220 million. 3. Home Video By the mid 1980s, the home video revolution had swept the coutnry. Sony introudced its Betamax half inch home video cassette recorder (VCR) in 1975.

Originally priced at more than $1000 (double that in todayï¿½s dollars), the cost of a Beta machine and their newer rivals from VHS dropped to just over $300 a machine by the mid 1980s. An enthusiastic public snapped up the machines. By 1989, two thirds of American homes were equipped to tape off the air or to run pre recorded tapes. At first, Hollywood loathed the VCR, figuring it would undermine revenues. The studios vastly underestimated the demand for movies-at-home and tried to sell prerecorded movies to the public for $60 and up. Fewer buyers. The significant breakthrough came in the early 1980s, when local entrepreneurs throughout the US began to buy multiple copies of pre recorded movies and to rent them to the public. The terms varied, but usually one had to join a movie club and then rent the tape for $1 or $2 a day. By the mid 1980s, stores renting video tapes seemed to be popping up on every street corner. Even grocery stores have jumped into the buisness. Hollywood finally saw the value in the tend.

In 1986, the returns from ancillary video sidelines exceeded the take at the US box office. During the mid 1980s, about 400 new pre recorded cassettes were being released each month. If any medium has suffered from this, it has not been the movies -- rather TV.

Question: Before the rise of Hollywood what was the world's largest film distributing company
Answer: The Ford Motor Company