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The Movie Industry
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
1. Explain the history of movies in the United States and how it affects the industry today
2. Analyze the production, distribution, and exhibition processes for theatrical motion pictures in the United States and recognize the major players in each realm
3. Describe how movies are financed, and how they make money through various exhibition arrangements
4. Analyze the relationship between movie distributors and theaters
5. Explain the impact of new technologies and globalization on the movie industry
6. Consider the impact of the American movie culture on world culture
“The words ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’—which I saw on an Italian movie poster—are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies”
MEDIA TODAY
You get to the theater a bit late with your date on a Saturday night, hoping the movie you want to see isn’t sold out. Just your luck—it is. You agree on one of the other movies that the theater is showing. Next question: Will you share buttered popcorn? Your date says no (too greasy); how about some Raisinettes? Where do you want to sit? This seemed like a good place, but the person in front is too tall. It might be best to move. Next issue: Where will you go when the movie ends? Ice cream? No, too fattening. Coffee?
Movies and dating seem linked, don’t they? But although people on dates go to the movies more often than other people in the United States, movie theaters draw more than just the romantic crowd. Check out the Saturday and Sunday afternoon theater hordes around malls, and you’ll see a lot of children and their parents. Married baby boomers with older kids attend movie theaters fairly often, and senior citizens frequent early evening (“twilight”) shows.
As for the movies themselves, even if you don’t actually see many of them, you’re likely to learn about the most expensive ones that are coming out. The advertising and publicity surrounding such movies tell you about the basic plot and who the stars are—along with the enormous salaries those stars may be getting, why they choose to act in particular films, and how much their screen characters relate to their real personalities. You may even learn how much money top films are taking in at theater box offices around the country.
This chapter goes beyond the glitz of movies to sketch what these reports rarely explain: how the motion picture industry actually works. What companies are involved in production, distribution, and exhibition? Where does the money come from to support these activities? To what extent are new media technologies changing the way motion picture executives do their jobs?
The motion picture industry is at the center of much popular culture production in the United States and throughout the world. Films that are made for the “big screen” influence a variety of other businesses—from home video to television, toys to clothing. Moreover, the ways in which the movie industry is changing in response to new technologies and the needs of media conglomerates raise important questions about the control of popular culture in the twenty-first century.
How and why did a handful of companies associated with a place called Hollywood become so influential in the creation of America’s popular culture? To answer these questions, we have to go back in time to a period when moving pictures were associated with magic shows.
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