{"id":178,"date":"2009-05-07T10:46:53","date_gmt":"2009-05-07T10:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/?p=178"},"modified":"2009-05-07T10:46:53","modified_gmt":"2009-05-07T10:46:53","slug":"hollywoods-independence-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/2009\/05\/07\/hollywoods-independence-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood’s Independence Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The first week of May is\u00a0well known\u00a0for a series of justice, human rights, and independence celebrations; via the Law Day, May Day, and Cinco de Mayo holidays.\u00a0Interestingly enough, this week also marks a\u00a0historic breakthrough in film distribution and the proverbial “beginning of the end”\u00a0for the Hollywood studio system.<\/div>\n
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Prior to the late 1940’s, the Hollywood film industry was run by five studios, which\u00a0controlled every aspect of major film production, distribution, and exhibition. Of particular note in this system\u00a0was the\u00a0practice of\u00a0“block booking” films (i.e. forcing theatres to purchase numerous films, as a package deal)\u00a0and studio ownership of prime theatre locations;\u00a0effectively allowing studios to monopolize theatres with their product.\u00a0In retaliation to this non competitive system, a series of complaints were lodged against the five studios, by independent producers; culminating in the Hollywood Anti Trust Case of 1948 (aka the “United States v. Paramount Pictures”).<\/div>\n
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On May 4, 1948, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision on the “United States vs. Paramount Pictures” anti-trust case. The ruling\u00a0basically held that the established film distribution system was in violation of U.S. anti-trust laws, forcing studios to abandon “block booking” and divest themselves of theatre ownership. While there would be several more court cases, before the studio system was officially broken, the Paramount Decision proved to be the turning point, that eventually “opened” the industry.<\/div>\n
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In addition to\u00a0eroding the studio system and opening the film industry to a greater degree of competition, the Hollywood Anti Trust Case of 1948 also resulted in a drastic alteration to the business model of cinemas. No longer being directly tied in to studios, theatres were faced with higher film fees and decreased percentages of ticket sales, forcing\u00a0a move towards concession as a primary means of\u00a0revenue; the separation of studio and theatre\u00a0pushed theatres out of the film business and in to the food business. In turn, cinema design, operations, and the overall movie going experience were set on a new path, ultimately leading to what we see today.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0 The first week of May is\u00a0well known\u00a0for a series of justice, human rights, and independence celebrations; via the Law Day, May Day, and Cinco de Mayo holidays.\u00a0Interestingly enough, this week also marks a\u00a0historic breakthrough in film distribution and the proverbial “beginning of the end”\u00a0for the Hollywood studio system. \u00a0 . Prior to the late […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinelog.org\/cinelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}