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The Business of Film
This updated third edition introduces readers to the business of film at

every stage of the filmmaking lifecycle, from planning and production to
financing, marketing, and distribution. Celebrated authors Stephen R.
Greenwald and Paula Landry offer a practical, hands-on guide to the busi-
ness aspects of this evolving industry, exploring streaming, development,
financing trends, regional/global/online distribution, shifting business
models, exhibition, multi-platform delivery, marketing, VR/AR, virtual
production, accounting, and more.
The book is illustrated throughout with sample financing scenarios and
charts/graphics, and includes detailed case studies from projects of differ-
ent budgets and markets. This new and expanded edition has further been
amended to reflect the new challenges facing the industry due to Covid-19
and how to navigate the new landscape of film financing and distribution.
Other updates include coverage of new indie films and distributors, changes
to virtual production, the recent impact of global markets including the
biggest streamers like Netflix, Apple, and Amazon and how they are dis-
rupting and shaping the future of the business.
This is essential reading for students looking for foundational knowl-
edge of the film industry and guidance on how to successfully adapt to
constant changes in the entertainment business.
Extensive online support material accompanies the book including
downloadable forms and templates, PowerPoint slides, quizzes and test
banks, and other additional resources.
Stephen R. Greenwald has served as an executive, financier, consultant,

and lawyer within the motion-picture industry. He is currently the manag-
ing partner of G&H Media LLC, Chief Operating Officer of Grey Eagle
Films LLC, and Director of Media Studies at Wagner College in New
York. Stephen has worked widely in the movie business, and from 1999 to
2007 was president of the Metropolitan College of New York, where he
launched an innovative graduate business program in media management,
the first of its kind in the country.
Paula Landry is a writer/producer, film business and media consultant,
interested in disruptive business models. Landry crafts feature films and
episodic content, business plans, budgets and schedules, as well as branded
content for Fortune 500 companies and non-profits. Landry is president of
IdeaBlizzard Productions and is also the author of Scheduling and Budgeting
Your Film: A Panic-Free Guide, now in its second edition and Applying
Entrepreneurship to the Arts: How Artists, Creatives, and Performers Can
Use Start-up Principles to Build Careers and Generate Income. An active
Board Member of PANO Film Network, Landry conducts media semi-
nars worldwide, coaching creative entrepreneurs and teaching MBA stu-
dents in various colleges in New York City.
The Business of Film
A Practical Introduction
Third Edition
Stephen R. Greenwald,
Paula Landry with additional
content by Michael Kalb
and Robert Garson Esq.
Cover image: © Getty Images
Third edition published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 Paula Landry and Stephen R. Greenwald
The right of Paula Landry and Stephen R. Greenwald to be
identified as authors of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trade-
marks or registered trademarks and are used only for identifica-
tion and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Lone Eagle 2009
Second edition published by Routledge 2018
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Greenwald, Stephen R., author. | Landry, Paula, 1969-
author. | Kalb, Michael, author. | Garson Esq., Robert, author.
Title: The business of film : a practical introduction / Stephen R
Greenwald, Paula Landry ; with additional content by Michael
Kalb and Robert Garson Esq..
Description: Third edition. | New York ; Abingdon, Oxon :
Routledge, 2023 |
Series: American Film Market presents | Includes ibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022017182 (print) | LCCN 2022017183
(ebook) | ISBN 9781032108742 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032108742
(pbk) | ISBN 9781003217480 (ebk)
Classification: LCC PN1993.5.U6 G74 2023 (print) | LCC PN1993.5.U6
(ebook) | DDC 791.430973--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022017182
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022017183
ISBN: 978-1-032-10876-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-10874-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-21748-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003217480
Typeset in Times New Roman
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Access the Support Material: www.routledge.
com/9781032108742
Contents
Preface viii
Author Bios xi
Notes on Contributors xiv
Introduction xvi
1 A Brief History of the Film Industry 1

Movie Industry Themes 2
A Brief Business History of Film 9
Convergence and Disruption 26
Fast Forward to Present Day 27
2 A Business Overview of Film 35

Key Characteristics of the Industry 35
Structure of the Industry 38
New Media Players and Their Impact 48
Case Study: Norman and Me 48
Case Study: European Film Industry, An Overview 53
3 Movie Development 62
Where Films Come From 63
Process 68
Studio Versus Indie 88
DIY Filmmaking 92
Case Study: Relying on Genre: 2017 Horror Movie,
Stephen King’s It 93
Case Study: The Nature of Copyright: European Author’s
Rights Versus American Copyright—by Michael
Kalb 95
vi Contents
4 Movie Financing 105

Corporate Financing 106
Picture Financing 112
Crowdfunding, Production Incentives, Soft Money,
Blockchain 117
The Future 121
Case Study: How to Make $250 Million and Lose it, in
a Year: The Story of the Film Business—by Stephen
Greenwald 123
Case Study: Adventures in Oz 130
5 Movie Production 135

Preproduction—Planning 137
Production 156
Postproduction 164
Impact of Mobile, VR/AR, and IMAX 168
Case Study: Cell Phone Feature Film Tangerine 173
6 Movie Distribution 177

Distribution Details 179
The Distribution Agreement 185
Changes in Distribution: Internet Streaming, Convergence,
Disruptors 190
The Major Distribution Companies 192
Impact of the Internet and Mobile Technology 211
Direct and Hybrid 213
Global Influences on Distribution 214
Case Study: Comic Book Movies Take Over the World:
Wonder Woman 215
7 Movie Marketing 219

Marketing: Creating Awareness for a Film 219
Social Media 233
Trends in Promotion and Marketing 235
Film Festivals and Markets 237
Case Study: The Million Dollar Mystery 239
Case Study: Marketing Moonlight 243
Contents vii
8 Film Exhibition, Retail, and Consumption 246

Theatrical 247
Rethinking the Theatrical Experience 255
From Video/DVD to VOD/PPV 265
Mobile Platforms 271
Cable/Free-TV/Cutting the Cord 272
Impact of Global Markets 275
Ancillary Rights 280
Case Study: Netflix in Movie Theaters—Okja 282
9 Movie Accounting 287

GAAP Versus Contractual Accounting 288
GAAP—Corporate Accounting 288
Appendix307
A. Option and Literary Purchase Agreement 307
B. Release for Submission of Materials to Studio or
Production Company 325
C. Writer Theatrical Short-Form Agreement—Work for
Hire 329
D. Life Story Rights Agreement 341
E. Directing Agreement 349
F. Actor Services Agreement 358
G. Product Placement Release 364
H. Script Readers Coverage Report Content and
Format 365
I. Acceptable Genre Classifications 367
J. Film Festivals 369
K. Online Film Distribution Platforms 370
L. Popular Movie Industry Trade Magazines/Sites 371
Index 375
Preface
For some years the authors have taught a course on the film industry at
Wagner College in New York City and Metropolitan College of New
York as part of the College’s Masters of Business Administration in
Media Management Program. The content and structure of this book
is based on that course. We wanted a single book that provided a linear
overview of all aspects of the industry— with development, financing,
production, distribution and marketing, exhibition, legal and business
affairs— in an integrated way and from primarily a business, rather than
creative, artistic, or legal perspective. So, we took up the challenge of
writing such a book.
After the publication of the 2nd edition in 2018, the industry shifted
significantly toward streaming as Netflix and Amazon gained many more
viewers and became a first window for consumers to see films, and the stu-
dios were seeking a way to compete. Along the way, other streaming ser-
vices such as Apple and Hulu quickly followed the examples of Netflix and
Amazon and competition became more heated. In the midst of this chang-
ing business model— away from cable, broadcast, video, and in-theater
screening towards digital consumption by streaming, it became clear this
was a permanent change to the industry. Then the global pandemic arrived,
shuttering movie theaters, halting film production, spurring the need to
find new ways to bring movies to audiences. The combination of these
events has shifted the business in a fundamental way, and we felt it was
vital that we attempt to understand, and share this with readers who seek
to understand the movie business as it is today.
The organization and structure of the book follows the steps involved in
making and exploiting a film. After a survey of the history of the industry
and an overview of its current structure, we follow those steps through
development, financing, production, distribution, exhibition, marketing,
and finally accounting for costs and revenues, highlighting the latest trends
and how they affect the industry. Streaming has changed certain aspects of
the business model in a fundamental way, from financing to how audiences
consume movies, to price points.
Preface ix
While our goal is to provide the broadest possible overview of the mov-
ies as a business, we have tried to include enough specifics and details in
each subject area to hopefully give guidance to readers on how the industry
works on a pragmatic, “nuts and bolts” level, especially for readers with an
interest in pursuing a career in the business.
There are several large themes we try to stress throughout the book;
themes related to characteristics about the film industry that make it differ-
ent in some ways than other businesses and that offer insight into the past
and future. First, that film is both an art form and a business and that suc-
cess in the industry requires an ability to navigate and mediate between
those two sometimes warring and opposing poles. Closely related is that an
ability to manage creative talent is a sine qua non for reaching the top in the
business. Second, that film, as an art and a business, is technologically
driven and that technological developments have shaped, and will continue
to shape, the way films are made and distributed and, not so obviously
perhaps, the very nature and kinds of films that are made. Third, that there
are recurring phenomena in the history of the business that, if observed,
point to an understanding of the future. An example is the reluctance of
the industry, and particularly its major players, to embrace technological
change but rather to at first fear and fight it, then to let other entrepreneurs
take the risk and rewards, if any, of proving the value of the new technol-
ogy, and then, after it has been proven, taking it over and co-opting those
who took the risks, turning the technology to the service of the industry. In
that drama lie clues to both risks and rewards for the future. Fourth, and
related, is that in the film industry, as in other activities and enterprises, a
knowledge of the past is the key to the future, and an understanding of
how the industry has responded and adapted to change, economic, politi-
cal, and cultural as well as technological, will help form an understanding
of how the industry will adapt to the change that is inevitably coming.
Those who have studied the past will be in a better position to take advan-
tage of future change.
The final theme is that the film business, like other media businesses, is
now at the threshold of radical change, at least as significant if not more so
than many of the changes of the past, and that this transformative change,
driven by the extraordinary advances in new forms of production and par-
ticularly distribution, enabled by the digital revolution, will alter the basic
architecture of the industry that has prevailed almost since its beginnings,
in dramatic and possibly unforeseen ways.
This radical change offers challenges and rewards to those who embrace it.
Both authors have had the privilege of working in the film industry and
in the course of that work meeting and dealing with the many extraordi-
narily talented and dedicated people in the movie business. It is an exciting
and vibrant industry, and an important one as well, serving as a repository
of much of our cultural and social history and as a powerful force for the
x Preface
transmission of ideas and social commentary, both good and bad. While
demanding, the movie business is also an enjoyable place to work, full of
interesting and passionate people. And in the end, it is all about telling
stories people want to see and hear. We hope we have told a story that you
will enjoy as well.
We’d like to thank Rebecca Sullivan and Rick Mowat for their patience,
good humor, and unwavering support; Michael Kalb and Robert Garson
for their expertise and contributions to the book.
Also, we’d like to thank the experts who shared their time and extensive
knowledge with us during interviews including the illustrious Entertainment
Attorney Alan U. Schwartz, Producer/Director Archie Gips, Literary
Agent and Entertainment Attorney Jeff Silberman, Filmmaker Michael
Mentor, Film and Television Producer Todd Lieberman, Entertainment
Attorney Patricia Glaser, Film Producer and Marketing Executive Peter
Graves, Author and President of the Association of Film Commissioners
Eve Honthaner, Producer, Writer and Director Dan Chuba, Actor/
Director, Founder & Chair of Alliance of Women Directors Jennifer
Warren, filmmaking advisor and CPA Fred Siegel, Producer Rafaella De
Laurentiis and the Film Producer, Distributor, Marketer and Educator Ira
Deutchman.
We appreciate our publishing team at Taylor & Francis/Routledge
including Sarah Pickles, editors Katherine Kadian, Daniel Kershaw and
Alyssa Turner for their advice and guidance.
Author Bios
Stephen Greenwald has been professionally involved in the motion picture

and related industries for over 30 years as an attorney, film financier,
corporate executive, producer, and consultant. Greenwald is Of Counsel
at the law firm Garson, Segal, Steinmetz, Fladgate LLP; as well as a
consultant with Presidential Partners. Previously, he was the CEO of
De Laurentiis Entertainment in Hollywood, and served as CEO of the
film distribution companies, Odyssey Pictures and Vision International.
His expertise encompasses many aspects of the entertainment busi-
ness, including development, production, international distribution,
film financing, film and film library and literary work valuations, media
company reorganizations, and film studio construction and operation.
He has taken companies public, and raised financing for film produc-
tion and distribution in the US, Europe, and Australia. He has also
served as a consultant and expert witness in litigation involving film and
television and other intellectual property matters, including valuations
of intellectual property.
Greenwald’s experience in media and entertainment law is augmented
by service as an executive in the motion picture industry, including as
Chief Executive Officer of two public companies in the film business.
Stephen’s expertise encompasses the financing, acquisition, licensing,
exploitation, sale and valuation of intellectual property and the nego-
tiation of production and talent agreements. Mr Greenwald served as
a principal and general partner for some 15 partnerships formed to
invest in motion pictures and real estate, structured deals to acquire the
assets of Embassy Pictures Corp. from its then owner, Coca-Cola, Inc.
(through its subsidiary Columbia Pictures), built film studios and film
programs internationally.
Stephen is also a recognized expert for the valuation of film and tele-
vision libraries, other media assets and intellectual property, and has
testified as an expert witness in numerous cases. Mr Greenwald has
worked as a consultant to major US and European banks and to US
media companies in connection with film industry matters. His clients
xii Author Bios
have included Bank of America, Credit Lyonnais Bank, Sony Pictures,

Imperial Kapital GMBH, and MGM/UA. He has also been retained
to value intellectual property including literary works and films by the
owners of such works and/or potential acquirers, including the valua-
tion of the Thom-EMI library of 1,600 films, the Filmation animated
film library, the Elia Kazan film library, and the Truman Capote Literary
Trust and has partnered with Grey Eagle Films LLC, a film and televi-
sion development and production company. In addition, Mr Greenwald
has lectured on film financing and distribution before various groups,
and has taught courses on entertainment financing, entertainment law
and the film industry, at Wagner College, at the Cardozo School of Law,
Metropolitan College of New York, and The College of Management
in Israel. Previously, he was the President of Metropolitan College of
New York in Manhattan and has served as a Director of the Hugh L.
Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College. His col-
umns have been featured on the Huffington Post.
Greenwald has structured many innovative entertainment deals,
taught seminars all over the globe, and advised governments on how
to use film production incentives as a tool to build their local economy.
His company G&H Media consults with IP companies, filmmakers and
entertainment attorneys for financial models and library valuations.
Paula Landry, MBA is an author and award-winning writer/producer
who works in film, television, and media entrepreneurship. Her clients
include brands, creatives, and companies big and small. As a creator,
her purpose is to entertain audiences with compelling stories to reduce
loneliness; link artists with entrepreneurial tools, and bring consulting
clients increased revenue and visibility. She is the author of Scheduling
and Budgeting Your Film: A Panic-Free Guide, 2nd ed. (Taylor & Francis)
and co-author with Stephen Greenwald of The Business of Film, A
Practical Guide (Taylor & Francis).
She generates budgets, business plans, media, and financing strategies
for her clients. Recent projects include comedic Irish crime thriller LAST
PINT, the adaptation of Warren Adler’s (War of the Roses) DEAD
IN THE WATER for the screen; launching the Stage to Screen Script
Contest seeking to develop projects for both theater and screen. Landry
consults on corporate creativity, creating a creative entrepreneurship
program for The Actors Fund entitled “Your Art As Business,” spear-
heads VR film project development; educational media curriculums and
initiatives in movie and media education. Her new book on entrepre-
neurship for creatives will be published in 2022 also by Taylor & Francis.
She volunteers as a Board Member for the non-profit organization
PANO (formerly New York City Women Filmmakers); enjoys working
as a creative coach, teaching entrepreneurship; mentoring writers and
Author Bios xiii
filmmakers; and seeks to learn constantly. Ms Landry has conducted

financial library valuations for film, television and theater in association
with G&H Media.
As a professor, Ms Landry has spearheaded graduate media pro-
grams in New York City at Wagner College, Metropolitan College of
New York, also conducting seminars on media and entrepreneurship
at The Actors Fund, NYCWF, NYWIFT, SVA, and for workshops in
Cuba, Haifa, Paris, and London. Landry’s clients include companies
large and small, creative entrepreneurs and non-profits, from Forbes,
Deutsche Bank, Christie’s, Pearson Television, Entertainment Weekly,
The Game Show Channel, Ajoy Management, Creative Partners, Tribe
Pictures, Fit TV to The Actors Fund, Smile Train, and individual media
makers. Her films have debuted at Sundance, Chelsea Film Festival,
CineVegas, winning awards from the Best Actors Film Fest, Columbia
Pictures Screen Gems, Time Warner Showtime Audience Award, and
WorldFest Houston Film Festival; her writing has won the Lugnut
Award, 2nd Round at Austin Film Festival, and a semi-finalist at Made
in NY Writer’s Room. Ms Landry is a member of Disney’s Creative
Talent Development & Inclusion program. Landry is a creative coach,
mentoring entrepreneurs, writers, filmmakers in VR, as well as creative
entrepreneurship, scheduling, and budgeting. Connect with her @1pau-
lalandry on LinkedIn.
Notes on Contributors
With Additional Content by Michael Kalb

Michael Kalb, born 1989, is a German filmmaker and graduate of the
University of Television and Film in Munich, working worldwide. He has
studied and worked on a variety of film projects in Los Angeles, San Diego,
and New York City, working with companies such as Voltage Pictures, the
Bavarian Film Studios and film production pool within the Beta Film
Group.
Currently working as a producer and documentary film maker, Kalb has
won a variety of scholarships and awards, including the Student
Competition at IDFA 2019 with the short “Saudade” he produced. In 2020
Bavarian Television (BR) broadcasted his first feature documentary “Die
letzten Zeitzeugen” (Children of Tomorrow). This project was accompa-
nied by an extensive historical archive and book project and won the Media
Award of the city of Augsburg 2020.
Appendix Legal Forms Courtesy of Garson,

Segal, Steinmetz, and Fladgate LLC
All legal agreements courtesy of Robert Garson, Attorney & Barrister, and
Managing Partner of Garson, Segal, Steinmetz, and Fladgate LLC.
Robert Garson BA (Hons), Dip. Law. LLM is a dually-qualified Barrister
and New York attorney, having led a successful career in the UK before
moving to New York City to found GS2Law, where he has served as
Managing Partner for over 7 years. On completing an LLM at Cardozo,
Robert quickly established himself as a dynamic advocate before courts
and arbitral panels alike, and has amassed experience in transactions that
focus on intellectual property and international law.
One focus of Robert’s practice is the representation of independent
movie producers and film funds where he has negotiated and drafted the
full panoply of contracts that are routinely encountered in the business of
film— from literary options, to key cast and crew, through to distribution
Notes on Contributors xv
agreements. Rather than accepting Hollywood “standard” clauses, Robert

places a premium on providing innovative, worldly, and sensible thinking,
such as the creation of the “Musketeer’s clause” for multi-handed writing
teams.
Robert is a regular contributing author on privacy, First Amendment,
and intellectual property law in The Observer and in his spare time is an
award-winning voice actor.
Introduction
In 2021, the actress Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against Walt Disney
Studios. The lawsuit, which was settled later in 2021, asserted that Disney
had breached Johansson’s contract to star in the film “Black Widow” by
simultaneously releasing the film in movie theaters and on the streaming
service Disney Plus. This lawsuit incorporates in its details many of the
phenomena that have changed the film business in the past decade; phe-
nomena that we summarize below and discuss in detail in this book.
“Black Widow” was the ninth film in a series with the same major char-
acter, identified in the film’s title. The origin of the character was with
Marvel Comics, which was acquired by Disney in 2009. Since that acquisi-
tion Disney and Marvel have spun out over 27 films from the Comics, cre-
ating what is now called “The Marvel Universe,” wherein new stories are
created not only as sequels, but also by mixing characters and storylines
between and among the different films to draw fans of one or more parts
of the Universe to other films with the characters and storylines the fans
like. This “universe” concept has been staggeringly successful for Disney,
with the films generating enormous box office revenues and powering rev-
enues from streaming and other post-theatrical windows. A further charac-
teristic of these films is that they are in large part created via computer
generated imagery, so-called CGI, a technological development in film-
making that replaces the historical practice of filming action sequences in
real time and as enacted by actors.
The revenue numbers for these comic book, CGI created, films do not
lie. They reflect the fact that these films are the most popular film genre of
our time and are totally dominant in movie theaters, driving out and
diminishing the share of box-office for other genre films, such as romance
films, romantic comedy, musicals, horror films, crime films. This does not
mean that other genre films will no longer be produced but rather that they
will have to be produced on budgets that reflect the fact that the films will
get little or no box-office revenues and will likely be released first on a
streaming service where potential “windfall” profits are non- existent.
Introduction xvii
Film is an art form as well as a business, and to the extent the CGI created
superhero films are driving out the opportunities for other genre films to be
seen on the big screen, is a loss to the art of cinema.
The other phenomena exemplified by the Johansson case is the enor-
mous growth and influence of the internet streaming services. Not only
have Netflix and Amazon radically grown their subscriber bases; they have
moved into film development and production, becoming, in a real sense,
film studios, in competition for stories and talent with the existing studios.
They have also branched out into acquiring movie theaters and they oper-
ate on an international level, producing films in countries around the
world. Most of the “majors” have set up their own streaming services, as
Disney did with Disney Plus, implicitly conceding the popularity of
streaming with the public.
Finally, the Covid crisis that enveloped the world starting in early 2020
had a catastrophic impact on the movie theater business, forcing the clo-
sure of most of the country’s theaters through at least mid-2021, with some
limited recovery in late 2021. Many independent theaters closed perma-
nently and the big chains suffered huge losses that will take years to recoup.
And of course, the shut-down of theaters is a huge factor in the growth of
streaming services and, indeed, was likely the impetus behind Disney’s
decision to have a simultaneous release.
We will expand upon the themes and observations above in this book,
along with many other aspects of the industry, as we examine the current
state of the movie business.
Chapter 1
A Brief History of the

Film Industry
This is a book about the film industry and how it functions as a business,
how it is changing, and why. Movies have been made and sold for over 100
years and a study of the history of the business shows that there are recur-
ring trends, technological developments, and inflection points that impact
and foretell the future of film. An understanding of this history will help
a student of, and participant in, the industry to anticipate what is coming
next. This book will cover the basic components of the industry providing
the reader with an understanding of how movies are created and sold, and
how those basic components interact.
In the popular imagination, the movie business is a handful of big, well-
known studios located in Los Angeles, the films these studios release, and
the movie stars that appear in them. While it is true that the studios are
responsible for producing and distributing many of the movies that gener-
ate the most public attention and revenue, the studios have recently faced
extreme competition in the form of technology companies producing and
streaming film, television shows and videos such as Amazon, Netflix,
Apple, and Google’s YouTube. Beyond these behemoths disrupting the
industry, the ecosystem of movies includes many others; numerous online
film platforms; independent filmmakers working outside the studio system
and producing some of the most interesting and thought-provoking films;
documentarians focusing on social and political issues; animators; produc-
ers and distributors of films made for television; producers creating corpo-
rate films, social media videos and online web videos and series, virtual
reality films, and educational films; independent distributors; technology
companies expanding into media distribution; foreign sales agents; theatri-
cal exhibitors; talent agents and managers; as well as the thousands of
vendors providing the services required to create, market, and distribute
these films.
Here are the basics of the industry:
• What is it? The core function and activity of the film business is pro-
ducing and distributing films for profit.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003217480-1
2 A Brief History of the Film Industry
• Where is the film business? While the American film industry is still
based in the Los Angeles area, and many corporate offices of the stu-
dios are in California and New York City, the business must appeal to
worldwide audiences and is now a truly global enterprise.
• When did the film business start? In the 1890s with the invention of the
movie camera (Kinetograph) and projector (Kinetoscope) by Thomas
Edison in the US and at the same time in France.
• Who are major players? Currently dominating the industry, the
big studios in the US are: Disney (which acquired Fox); Universal;
Paramount; Sony; Warner Bros.; and together they produce and dis-
tribute the films that earn the most box office revenue worldwide, for
the first time—behind China. Streaming subscription service Netflix,
as well as technology companies like Amazon and Apple loom over
the studios, threatening them with decreasing their market share. In
exhibition, China’s largest film distributor Wanda, is one of the big-
gest theater exhibitors worldwide; having sold their controlling stake
in AMC in 2021. AMC is one of the largest theater chains, owning
950 theaters with 10,500 screens across North America and Europe.
The lockdown period of the pandemic in 2020 forced theaters to close,
and more audiences embraced streaming, which strengthened Netflix,
Amazon, and the studios that successfully launched streaming services
such as Disney Plus.
• How does it operate and how is it changing? Movies are made (pro-
duced), licensed to various media formats (distributed), promoted to
audiences (marketed) all over the world in multiple media formats in
order for them to pay for and consume them (the exhibition, viewing,
and retail segment). Global markets, consumer tastes and demand,
availability of financing, and technological developments are con-
stantly changing how the business operates.
These basics are affected by the various themes of the movie business.
Movie Industry Themes

Various recurring themes of the industry appear in different aspects of film-
making and forecast what is to come; including the global nature of the busi-
ness, the tension between business and art, the profit-driven impact of movies,
the collaborative nature of the medium, how technology informs every aspect
of movies, and the inherently capital-intense nature of the business.
A Global Business
Until recently, American films have generated the highest box-office, domi-
nating the world market. In 2020, China just surpassed American box
A Brief History of the Film Industry 3
office, around $2 billion compared to North America,1 an ongoing trend in

2021. Film is a dominant force within the overall media and entertainment
industry, but due to pandemic lockdowns, global box office fell 72 percent
from 2019 to 2020 to $12 billon, while the streaming and digital home/
mobile entertainment market rose 31 percent worldwide to $74 billion.2
The US is the third largest film market in the world in terms of tickets
sold, behind China and India. The international market is increasingly
important to US film companies, with 81 percent of global box-office rev-
enue for US films in 2020 coming from abroad.3 Surging international rev-
enue reflects an increasing worldwide appetite for franchises, sequels, and
movie stars. Success in the movie business requires a keen understanding
of evolving markets, cultural factors, and economic developments through-
out the world. The rapid growth of the entertainment industry in China is
impacting the US industry in major ways, affecting development and pro-
duction, financing, and distribution. The US population of 350 million
makes up only five percent of the global population of nearly eight billion,
which means that creating films for customers outside of the US is of
growing importance and is changing the business.
Both a Business and an Art Form

Balancing the interests and demands of business and art is a challenge.
The American film industry is profit-driven and business interests have
almost always dominated filmmaking since it began. In much of the rest
of the world, particularly Europe, art and the interests of artists have often
trumped business interests, although this is changing. Many believe that
it is the supremacy of the profit motive that explains the worldwide domi-
nance of American films. From its inception, the American film industry
was financed by the private sector as a commercial profit-making enter-
prise. Success was measured by the imperatives of the private capital mar-
kets: a return on capital and wealth creation. In Europe and much of the
rest of the world, from its beginnings film was considered more an art form
than a commercial product, supported by public funding rather than pri-
vate capital. As the drive for profits fuels the worldwide market, readers
can speculate whether film as an art form will survive.
Profit-Driven
The businessmen and investors who financed and often ran the film industry
were interested in making money, which meant making films that appealed
to the largest possible audiences. American filmmakers became adept at
turning out movies that satisfied the tastes of the broadest audiences. What
counted was box-office success, not critical acclaim. Today, approval from
press, reviewers, and “tastemakers” are only important as marketing tools
for a movie. The producers, writers, and directors who could make com-
mercially successful movies were rewarded both financially and with more
work, reinforcing the dominance of movies that had broad appeal. In this
system the producer, who was often the investor or who represented the
interest of the investors, had control over the filmmaking process. He or
she had the power to hire and fire creative talent, and to make whatever
changes they deemed necessary in order to make a film more commer-
cial. These commercially savvy producers—men like Daryl Zanuck, Louis
B. Mayer, David O. Selznick, Irving Thalberg, Robert Evans, Spielberg,
Geffen, and Katzenberg—often ended up as heads of film studios. There
are parallels to notably successful creators and actors who were able to
transition to effective producers, like Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon,
Clint Eastwood, Elizabeth Banks, Laurence Fishburne, Tyler Perry, Adam
Sandler, Sandra Oh, and others.
Outside the US, and particularly in continental Europe, where there was
a tradition of governmental support for the creative arts, filmmaking was
financially supported by the public sector from its early beginnings. This
meant that filmmakers from these countries had less need than their
American counterparts to be concerned with catering to the tastes of the
general public. Their ability to get funding for future films did not depend
upon success at the box office, but rather on acceptance and recognition by
those who made the decisions about which artists were worthy of govern-
ment support. This subsidized system, which elevated artistic merit and rec-
ognition over mere commercial success, also led to the concept of the
director as the “auteur,” or author, of a film, with total control over the
filmmaking process. In the US model, the producer has total control. Public
financing often restricted the choice of screenwriters, directors, and other
professionals to local filmmakers, precluding the use of creative talent from
other countries. American producers, free to choose the best without restric-
tions, drew talent from around the world, helping to give American movies
an international flavor and dimension lacking in the more parochial films
that emanated from other countries. In countries controlled by restrictive
governments, film content was dictated by strict rules to be used as propa-
ganda, artistic content an afterthought.
With control lodged firmly in the hands of profit-driven producers
and studio heads, and career success linked closely to commercial results,
the American industry specializes in turning out films that appeal to the
widest possible audiences worldwide whether on a wide screen or stream-
ing platform.
The state-subsidized model that prevailed in Europe (and in many other
countries such as the Soviet Union and China), with control in the hands
of the director and success linked to artistic recognition, resulted in artisti-
cally acclaimed films from directors like Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini,
Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Bunuel, and others; films that garnered worldwide
recognition as great art, but generally were unprofitable or minor commer-

cial successes, with limited appeal to audiences from other countries.
Film industries in other countries outside Europe and the US tended to
follow the European model of public financing, although privately financed
film companies did emerge in countries such as India, Japan, Korea, and in
Latin America, in the period following World War II.
Film Is Collaborative
A writer, painter, or musician can create her or his art alone—and with
limited and relatively inexpensive tools such as pen and paper (or today,
a computer), paint and canvas, or an instrument. However, movies are
more complicated. As an art form film has characteristics that distinguish
it from other art forms and, in a sense, force filmmakers into collabora-
tions and compromises with, as well as a dependency on, business and
financial interests. With the advent of digital technology, filmmakers are
taking more of the process into their own hands, and prices have decreased
significantly, but they must still rely on others throughout the process.
Filmmaking is a highly collaborative enterprise involving many crafts-
people with specialized skills. Film production and distribution also entail
the use of equipment, materials, and processes that can be expensive to
design, develop, and manufacture such as cameras, film and editing equip-
ment, CGI, Artificial Intelligence and sound systems, projection devices,
and so forth. Few, if any, filmmakers have the human or financial resources,
or the organizational support, to produce and distribute a commercially
viable motion picture on their own; however, with excellent affordable digi-
tal tools, the Internet and do-it-yourself distribution services available, film-
makers are now able to market and sell their movies to audiences directly
without going through a traditional distribution company.
Annually, the top earning films yield the most global box-office revenue,
and typically, top grossing films have the largest production budgets. The
average production cost of a studio film at approximately $65 million plus
distribution and marketing costs of $35 million for a theatrical release,
brings the total cost to over $100 million, yet there really is no “average”
movie.4 However, the race to fill streaming platforms has accelerated bud-
gets overall with spending among the major players accelerating, jumping
20 percent in 2020 despite Covid at a total of $220 billion spent on movie
and television content.5
More films are being released at higher budgets, the action-adventure and
comic-book genres. In 2021, nine movies released were budgeted at $200–
300 million, and nine movies budgeted between $100 and 200 million.
Movies at the top of the spectrum are getting more expensive, with the high-
est budgets at $400 million (Avengers, Endgame), $379 million (Pirates of
the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides), and $306 million (Star Wars: Episode
VII—The Force Awakens), according to Box Office Mojo. Even a so-called

“low-budget” film from a studio entails a budget of at least $20 million in
order to have the minimum production values and look needed to be com-
mercially competitve.
The franchise model of movies with budgets routinely over $100 million,
based on popular intellectual property (IP) with popular comic book char-
acters, previous hit films, video games, and best-selling books, is becoming
the prevailing staple of studio filmmaking.
As streaming content dominates the landscape, made-for-television
movies have budgets in the millions and ever increasing. Faced with the
high cost of production and the organizational support needed to fulfill
their artistic visions, throughout the history of the industry filmmakers
have had to turn to others to provide these resources, such as the major
studios or other media companies or private investors.
Film Is an Art Form that Is Technologically Driven

Unlike music, visual art, and literature—art forms that long predated the
age of technology—motion pictures became possible only after the devel-
opment of the camera, the projector, and film itself. Film as both an art
form and a business has continued to be shaped by technology, not only
in the manner of its delivery and distribution, but in the way in which
films are produced as well as what sort of films are made. This dependence
on technology, and the risk capital required to develop it, has historically
strengthened the role of business and finance in the industry.
Trends in technology push the art form in two opposite directions, to be
more real and lifelike in one direction, and more fantastic and as far from
reality as possible, in the other.
Each significant advance in technology (see Figure 1.1), whether in the
production process, such as IMAX, 3D, 4D, virtual production or in distri-
bution, such as mobile viewing or bit torrent streaming pushes the bound-
aries of the medium. Movies and their stories change as the technology is
favored by audiences, exemplified by the popularity of internet platforms
like Amazon Prime, watching movies on mobile phones, the growth of vir-
tual production and XR—extended reality formats, with augmented real-
ity, and virtual reality, and the prevalence of comic book movies laden with
computer special effects.
Interactions between audiences and technology influence the industry in
many ways. Trends of younger audiences clearly indicate that they favor
shorter content, and preferring to view content at home, on tablets, com-
puters, or on mobile phones, a much smaller screen requiring less detail.
The Covid pandemic accelerated the trend toward streaming at home for
all audiences, so movie theaters have an uphill battle that may change
which movies are made.
Figure 1.1 Major Advances in Movie Industry Technology
Capital-Intensive
The need for large amounts of money to produce and distribute commer-
cially viable movies has shaped the industry and, at times, influenced the
kinds of films that were made. Recently, as an example, American film
companies who sought funding from China and corporate investors from
China, greatly impacted decisions about storylines, actors, shooting loca-
tions, and more. There has been somewhat of a pullback in these partner-
ships, increasingly American film companies are becoming more wary of
dealing with Chinese production companies and deals are falling through,
because of pressure by the Chinese government regarding content, or any
criticism of China. In 2019, the last pre-pandemic year of business nor-
malcy, the Hollywood studios’ collective total revenue in China fell 2.7
percent compared to the previous year, the first such direct decline in a
generation. All while Hollywood is facing criticism stateside for bending
over backward to appease the authoritarian regime.6 Also, with more hit
native Chinese films, China no longer needs American movies.
The fastest growing scale of movie over the past decade has been those
costing over $100 million. The median budget of movies has been on a
steady climb since 2013, however budgets vary by genre, star attachments,
and theatrical release.7 Movies made for streaming platforms are now rival-
ling the studios in some of their big franchise films, playing in the same
ballpark as studios—unlike typical made for television movies—in the low
millions. Streamers, who have no need for theatrical releases, are also
releasing movies with higher budgets, for example, Netflix with films like
Red Notice, The Irishman, and 6 Underground at $150 million. Among the
streamers, Apple is rumoured to be paying $200 million for Flower Moon
by Martin Scorsese, and Amazon is investing heavily in the episodic series
Lord of the Rings budgeted at $450 million. In the first decades of movies,
production funding came from theater owners who needed more product.
Later, as production and distribution costs increased, in part because of

technological improvements, financing came from the money markets in
the form of equity and debt capital. In recent decades, while continuing to
rely on these markets, the industry has turned to partnerships with private
investors and strategic partners like foreign distribution companies. In
addition, financing has resulted from mergers with better-funded compa-
nies. To satisfy the interests of investors, the “mom-and-pop” type of indi-
vidual ownership that prevailed in the early years of the business gave way
as the film industry organized itself into an efficient corporate form where
the demands of capital usually trumped those of art. One advantage that
the film business has always enjoyed in terms of outside financing is the
“glamour” factor: the attraction of movies as an investment for both indi-
vidual and corporate investors. Despite the inherent risks of the business,
the industry has learned over the years how to play this card adroitly to
interest outsiders in putting money into movies.
Much of the film business has been shaped by the need for capital,
the impact of technology, and the dynamic tension between art and
business. Today, new technological developments such as affordable
video cameras and editing systems, internet-related delivery platforms
and mobile technology that allow filmmakers to reach moviegoers
directly, and content aggregation systems like TikTok, YouTube, and
Vimeo, as well as internet streamers Amazon and Netflix, are exerting
enormous pressure on the industry. Government-funded production
incentives, which offer financing based on expenditures in a certain
area, are influencing where films are being made.
Essentially, movies have been produced and distributed in the same way
almost since the beginning of the industry, until streaming has upended
the business. Major film streamers, studios, or television networks are still
acting as gatekeepers for product flow to consumers. In recent years the
number of films and the scope of films made by Amazon and Netflix are
increasing, with higher budgets and some theatrical releases. Netflix has
even bought a few movie theaters in NY and CA. In fact, by 2021, there
was a transformation—the industry experienced the phenomenon—of the
studios imitating streamers. Indeed, every major studio is making movies
for streaming or simultaneous theater and streaming release, changing the
business model established over many decades. As in any time of transfor-
mation and upheaval, opportunities abound. One of the premises of this
book is that those who learn from the past will be best positioned to seize
opportunities in the future. The best way to do that is to begin to recognize
industry themes; by identifying convergence or disruption at play, influ-
enced by technology, need for capital, driven by profit-seeking, a clash of
art and business, or influenced by global trends. Recognition of these
themes will further understanding of the movie business and highlight
potential future outcomes.
A Brief Business History of Film

There is a substantial literature on the history of film as an art form; our
recommendations can be found on our website (www.ThisBusinessofFilm.
com). Since this book is about the business side of cinema, the follow-
ing brief overview will focus on key developments in that history that
affected the business and recurring themes that have emerged from those
developments.
The Early Years

While the answer to the question of who invented the motion picture
in the 1890s is still a contested one, with the French giving the credit to
the Lumière brothers and the Americans to Thomas Edison, there is no
doubt that film as a business originated in the United States. In Europe,
particularly on the continent, film was perceived as a new form of artis-
tic expression, suitable primarily for the aristocratic and social elites, like
painting, classical music, opera, and ballet—profits were an afterthought.
In America, however, the opposite was the case. Merchants and small busi-
nessmen like Samuel Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor, and William Fox quickly
grasped the potential of movies as an entertainment diversion—and as
another type of merchandise to sell to the masses crowding the large east-
ern and midwestern cities. First appearing in retail stores, nickelodeons
were the first movie theaters, where one-reelers could be seen by one person
at a time for five cents. Early films attracted the masses, especially recent
immigrants for whom the movies were an introduction to American life,
language, and lore.
Retailers needed more films to meet demand, and in response, nascent
film production facilities sprang up, centered in New York and New Jersey.
As demand for movies grew, including demand for longer films that told
stories, the theater owners realized that to have enough product, they
would have to start financing and producing movies themselves. These
newly minted producers were first and foremost businessmen, with a focus
on profit, not art. From the outset of what became the film studio system,
business interests were paramount.
The Birth of Distribution

The process of transforming a film from a script to a commercial movie
goes through five steps:
1 Development: an idea transformed into a script, the attachment of key

players (producer, director, stars), creation of a budget; in order to
seek:
2 Financing: securing the funds necessary to make the film.

3 Production: making the film so it’s ready to be seen and sold.
4 Distribution and Marketing: creating the maximum availability (dis-
tribution) of the movie for sale in as many media and places as pos-
sible; while generating awareness (marketing) so people want to see the
movie, which is called:
5 Exhibition: the point of purchase where people buy and consume a
movie—in movie theaters, on streaming platforms, via Electronic
Sell-through or on DVD, through pay-per-view (PPV) and video-on-
demand (VOD) systems, on cable or television.
When theater owners began to produce movies in order to keep up with

customer demand, it was a first step toward vertical integration, that is, the
common ownership and control of both production and exhibition facili-
ties, and the beginning of what eventually became the film studios.
A number of these production-exhibition companies then took the next
step of renting the films they owned to other theater owners—creating the
distribution side of the business.
The phenomenon of exhibitors or other licensees of content becoming pro-
ducers in order to ensure a flow of product for their distribution systems is one
that repeated itself over the ensuing decades, with television networks and
video distributors, and even consumer products manufacturers like Sony, enter-
ing the production business. In many cases, these attempts to go “upstream,”
that is, from being a content exhibitor, or licensee, to a content creator, failed.8
The primary reasons for this failure were the significantly larger amounts of
capital required to compete on the production side of the business, which many
downstream exhibitors or distributors lacked, and the very different manage-
ment skills needed to succeed as a producer, including the ability to manage
creative talent.
With the new wave of internet distribution companies expanding rap-
idly, such as Netflix, Amazon, and Apple, they have completely transi-
tioned in their efforts to go “upstream”; all successfully producing and
distributing movies.
Thomas Edison’s Monopoly

Thomas Edison, the inventor of the Kinetoscope (first film viewer) and
Kinetograph (first film camera), held patents on the equipment needed to
make and exhibit films. In 1908, in an effort to control the film business
in the United States and to drive out competitors, Edison went into busi-
ness with a number of exhibition and production companies to form a
monopoly; no film production company or exhibitor outside the monopoly
would be able to buy the equipment needed to make or exhibit films. The
monopoly was called the Motion Picture Patents Company, better known
as the Edison Trust. The Edison Trust was a cloud over the growth of
the film business in its early years. The Trust, which held Edison’s patents,
would not sell film equipment to filmmakers, but only rent it for fees that
became increasingly exorbitant. The Trust’s power was such that it was
able to force Eastman Kodak to withhold raw film stock from producers
who weren’t licensed by the Trust.9
Independent producers fought the Edison Trust monopoly by buy-
ing equipment and film outside the United States and moving produc-
tion operations from the East Coast to the West Coast. At that time,
California was far enough away to avoid the effective legal reach of the
Trust, making it difficult for the Trust to monitor the producers’ activi-
ties and to enforce its patents through injunctions or other legal mea-
sures. Once there, the producers found a hospitable environment for
filmmaking: low-cost labor and facilities, wide-open spaces for loca-
tion shooting, and good weather all year round. They stayed, and the
center of the film business has remained in Southern California.
Eventually, in 1915, the federal courts ruled that the Edison Trust was
an illegal monopoly, and it was dissolved.
The Birth of the Studio System

The period from 1908 through the 1920s saw the emergence of the com-
panies that came to dominate the industry for the rest of the twentieth
century. Also, it was during this period that the “star system” developed—
with studios perfecting the art of publicity to glamorize and glorify certain
actors as larger-than-life figures and then using them to sell their movies
to the public. Actors like Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks,
Charlie Chaplin, and Rudolph Valentino became fan favorites, huge celeb-
rities, and big moneymakers for the studios, with the public clamoring to
see their films. In effect, the actors became the draw, more than the films.
It was during this period that the full-length feature film, telling novelistic
stories, became the norm.
By the end of the industry’s third decade the studio business model, with
full vertical integration, had emerged as the prevailing form of business
organization. The five major studios, which came to be known as the “Big
Five”—Warner Bros., Paramount, RKO, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the
Fox Film Corporation/Foundation10—owned the production facilities, dis-
tribution systems, and major theater operations, as well as the talent,
including the actors, directors, producers, and writers who were salaried
employees under contract to produce or appear in several films a year.
These were high-paid employees, to be sure, but employees nonetheless.
This business model would prevail until the 1950s.
The Marriage of Sight and Sound

The first major technological advance in film was sound. The Jazz Singer,
released in 1927, was the first feature “talkie” and the film business was
changed forever. The history of the transformation to sound captures a
number of themes that recur at each point of major technological change
in the industry.
Adding sound to film became feasible by 1921. The research and
development work that led to sound was carried out by companies
outside the industry, which had the necessary capital and research
capability, including Western Electric and General Electric. Once the
talkies were introduced to the public, the silent era was over. Countless
actors who could not make the transition to sound saw their careers
ended (Clara Bow, Emil Jannings). A movie that illustrates this pivotal
changeover in the industry is The Artist.
Smaller production companies that could not afford to make the transi-
tion went out of business. The shift to sound solidified the Big Five studios’
hold on the industry, but even they had to seek outside capital to finance
the cost of converting their production operations and theaters to talkies.
This need for outside capital led to the first major investments in the film
business by Wall Street financiers, further solidifying filmmaking’s depen-
dence on business interests.
The introduction of sound changed not only the way films were pro-
duced and exhibited but also the kinds of films that were made. Sound
allowed filmmakers to create movies that were dialogue-driven, vastly
expanding the types of stories that could be told and the power of film to
convey the human experience. This impact of new technology—changing
films in kind and nature—recurred with later technological developments
as well.
The Influence of Capital

The need for capital affected the film business in diverse ways. Beside driv-
ing out smaller players and consolidating the dominance of the major
studios, the need to account to outside investors brought greater fiscal dis-
cipline and organization to the industry, entrenching the studio-business
model of full vertical integration and tight control over talent as the domi-
nant model. Eager to please their new investors from the world of finance
and cultural conservatism, the studios turned out movies with patriotic
themes, celebrating the perceived virtues of small-town, middle-class,
hard-working America.11 During this period the first stirrings of censor-
ship were experienced by the industry, leading to the creation in 1922 of
the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. Created by the
film companies and headed by Will H. Hays, the Hays Office, as it came to
be known, enforced a reign of strict self-censorship, so as not to offend the

guardians of morality, often allied with centers of finance and capital.12
This influence of capital and ownership on the kinds of films that
were made was a phenomenon that recurred later in the century when
ownership of the majors was restructured, and the studios became divi-
sions of large media conglomerates with a wide variety of businesses
aside from movies.
Funding Research and Development

Another feature of technological change exemplified by the introduction
of sound was that the technology itself was developed outside the film
industry by companies with the required know-how and capital to take
the financial risk that the research and development would lead to usable
products. This, too, became a familiar pattern. Film companies generally
preferred to let outsiders take the lead in developing new technologies for
the industry or in adapting these technologies to the production and dis-
tribution of films. In the case of later advances, like television and video,
the studios also allowed other newly formed intermediary companies to
take the lead in exploiting the new technologies. One consequence of this
risk-averse approach was that the industry gave up part of the economic
value of the new technologies to the companies that developed and first
exploited it. Another was an initial resistance to certain technologies.
In the cases of television and video, the studio’s first reaction was to
perceive these inventions as a threat to the very existence of the film busi-
ness. The studios fought the introduction of television, particularly pay-
TV, and home video in the courts, and, by engaging in anticompetitive
practices, withheld films from companies that sought to exploit these new
delivery systems. Eventually, however, the studios reached accommoda-
tions with these companies, licensing their films for exploitation of the new
markets. Once these markets proved profitable, the studios went a step fur-
ther, embracing the technologies and directly distributing their product
through the new media. Eventually, they took the ultimate step of acquir-
ing former licensees, such as television broadcasting systems and home-
video distribution companies. The most recent example is the widespread
popularity of Netflix and Amazon movie streaming services, which forced
most of the studios to launch their own streaming platforms in order to
stay competitive.
The Impact of World Events

The decade of the 1930s was a boom period for movie making. Fully integrated
and with major talent under contract to write, direct, and act in several films a
year, the studios turned out record numbers of movies. The supply of talent
was enhanced by an influx of European filmmakers fleeing the worsening

political situation in their home countries. The first commercial films in
color were released during this era as well.
The film business did not, however, escape the effects of the Great
Depression, with theater attendance decreasing in the early part of the
decade. During the years of World War II, the industry, like other major
industries, contributed to the support of the war effort. While theatrical
films continued to be produced and distributed, many were war movies
that extolled the bravery and prowess of American forces and demonized
the Axis enemy, employing stereotypes of Germans and Japanese that per-
sisted long after the war ended. Many actors and other industry people
enlisted or were drafted, and writers and directors turned to producing
training films and documentaries about the war.
The Advent of Television

The late 1940s and the decades following were dominated by two interrelated
developments: the introduction and growth of television, and the gradual
breakdown of the vertically integrated studio system business model.
The introduction and immediate popularity and widespread growth of
television from 1948 into the 1950s had a profound impact on the movie
business. For the first time in its history, the industry faced a new competi-
tor for consumers’ “eyeballs.” The notion that people could stay home and
watch live or filmed entertainment for free rocked the movie industry.
Many predicted the end of the theatrical movie business and the studios’
first reaction was non-cooperation, refusing to license films to television
networks and broadcasters. But in the early 1950s, Lew Wasserman, chair-
man of MCA Universal, saw a dual opportunity in television. First, he
understood that producing television programs was not that different from
producing movies, and with television growing rapidly, the new medium
needed more program content that the studios, with their skill, know-how,
and facilities, could provide. Second, Wasserman correctly perceived that
the thousands of movies in studio film libraries were another source of
content for television. With these insights, MCA Universal started produc-
ing TV shows and licensing its library films to television, quickly generat-
ing revenue and profits from both activities. Other studios soon followed
suit. By the late 1950s, the major film studios, as producers and licensors of
TV content, were the largest suppliers of television programming, estab-
lishing lucrative new streams of revenue for the industry.
The first crack in the business model came in 1948, when the US Supreme
Court ruled against the studios in an antitrust case involving the studio
ownership of theaters. The case, US vs. Paramount Pictures, began in the
late 1930s when the Department of Justice launched an investigation of
the industry in response to complaints from independent theater owners
about the anticompetitive practices of the studios in booking their films

into theaters. After an interruption during the war years, the investigation
resumed, and the government filed an antitrust action against the major
studios, seeking divestiture by the studios of their theaters as a remedy.
After the Supreme Court decision in 1948, the studios entered into a con-
sent decree agreeing to divestiture. The effect was two-fold: the studios
were, for some period, no longer fully vertically integrated, and since they
no longer had the pressure of filling their own theaters with new product
every two weeks or so, they began to produce fewer movies. The eventual
result of the Paramount case and the divestiture that followed was a con-
solidation of theatrical exhibition into a few large companies, like AMC,
United Artists Theaters, Carmike Cinemas, and General Cinemas, mirror-
ing the structure of the production and distribution side of the industry.
The consent decree was relaxed in the 1990s and the studios were permit-
ted to re-enter the theater business, but by that time the share of overall
revenue to the studios from theatrical exhibition had dropped significantly,
and the existence of strong, well-funded competitors undermined one of
the key rationales for the antitrust action.
Television Spurs Media Consolidation and Independent

Film Production
To attract the public and lure them out of the comfort of their homes
and away from the TV set, the studios began to make fewer, but bigger,
films, turning movie-going into an “entertainment experience” worthy of
the price of a ticket and a babysitter. Epics of the time included Cleopatra
(1956) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956). Films got longer and more
expensive to produce, and the double feature—the practice of offering two
movies plus a twenty- to forty-minute “short” (often a live-action comedic
film by artists such as Laurel and Hardy, or a newsreel) and a cartoon, for
the price of one ticket—became a thing of the past. By the 1960s, average
weekly attendance at movie theaters was down 60 percent from attendance
in the 1920s13 (see Figure 1.2), however the studios were able to survive the
decline, because revenues from television supplanted reduced revenue from
the theatrical market at that time.14
By 2000, three of the major television networks were owned by film
companies (ABC by Disney, CBS by Paramount, Fox by 20th Century
Fox) and the fourth was part of a conglomerate that included a movie
company (NBC by GE). Every major film company was part of a group
that included ownership of cable television stations and/or cable broad-
casting systems. The marriage of the movie business and television, first
conceived by Lew Wasserman in 1952, was complete.15
Television also opened up new opportunities for writers, actors, and
directors. As the majors began to reduce the number of films they
produced, the studio business model of having talent on permanent con-

tract or fixed salaries no longer made sense, and it was better to contract
for the services of talent when needed. This in turn gave the talent, particu-
larly actors, more independence, allowing them to offer their services to the
highest bidder. This freedom of contract for talent also marked the begin-
ning of what became the independent film sector. Actors, directors, and
producers formed their own production companies and began to develop
films on their own, acquiring scripts or the rights to novels and plays, and
taking these projects to the studios for financing and distribution. This
spurred the growth of new independent production companies that, over
time, became major suppliers of film projects to the studios.
Figure 1.2 Average Weekly Cinema Attendance by Percentage
As in the case of sound, television changed the kinds of films that were
made as well. With the licensing of first-run theatrical movies to the televi-
sion market becoming an ever-greater source of revenue, the studios began
to tailor more of their product to what would work successfully on TV.
Formats that fit the needs of broadcasters in terms of running time (with
room for commercials) became the norm. In the pre-pay television era,
broadcast television standards limiting profanity, sexuality, and extreme
violence became, in effect, the standards for mainstream commercial film
as the importance of the TV market grew; a form of self-censorship that,
in part, led to the end of the era of strong external censorship exemplified
by the Hays Office.
By 2000, the major film companies’ income from theatrical exhibition
accounted for approximately 15–20 percent of total revenue, while income
from television represented about 40 percent of revenue. Today, revenue fluc-
tuates from year to year depending on the success of hit films and market
conditions, however, studios rely on streaming and television revenue (as well
as content licensing, music, publishing, and video games) to offset the riskiness
inherent on the film side.16 In 2019, theatrical revenue represented 42 percent
of the studio’s revenue as compared to 58 percent from digital and DVDs. As
Netflix, Amazon, and Apple have become major and dominant players in film
production making original product at competitive price points, the majors
are forced to spend more; with Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Warner
forming their own streaming platforms to stay current.
The Expansion and Impact of Cable TV

Cable television (initially CATV—coined after the “Community Antennas”
utilized) began in the late 1940s as a way to improve poor television recep-
tion in remote areas. It expanded nationally in the 1970s with programming
separate from over-the-air television, offering movies that had previously
been released into the theaters, sports events, syndicated programming,
and all-news formats.17
Cable’s major impact on the film industry was the creation of additional
outlets for the licensing of film libraries, enhancing revenue. Over time,
cable networks such as Turner Broadcasting, Lifetime, and the Disney
Channel became producers of original films, expanding the non-theatrical
film business to the benefit of the industry as a whole, particularly indepen-
dent producers. Almost all cable networks now create original program-
ming based on the tastes of their target audience.
As the popularity of cable television grew through the 1970s, two tiers of
service emerged: basic cable—a bundle of stations that were provided for
the overall price of using cable; and pay-television—stations provided for
an additional monthly subscription fee on top of the price for cable.
Pay-TV, as a new and competing window of exploitation for films, first
emerged with the formation of Home Box Office (HBO) in 1972. Once
again, the film industry perceived this new medium as a threat. The indus-
try’s response was to form its own cable channel, Premiere, which would
hold exclusive pay-TV licensing rights to films from its members
(Paramount, Universal, Columbia, Fox, as well as cable/financial interest
Getty Oil).18 This anticompetitive ploy was quickly challenged in the courts
and, once again, the studios’ efforts to thwart a new technology failed. As
before, the industry adapted and began to license films for pay-TV viewing,
another source of non-theatrical revenue.
In the early years of pay-TV the pay-cable networks relied almost
entirely on theatrical films for programming. However, as their subscriber
base grew (to 16 million households by 1980,19 then 30 million by 2002)20
and the cost of licensing films increased, the networks turned more to orig-
inal programming. This was particularly true of the two biggest networks,
HBO and Showtime. While this development reduced the licensing revenue
to the studios, it also created new sources of production financing for pro-
ducers, expanding the non-theatrical film business. And, since HBO,
Showtime, and a number of other pay networks were or became corporate
partners with studios, the revenue and profits from these productions
remained within the industry.
While the cable industry seems to be shrinking as more people cut the
cord, in fact, popular channels have created streaming versions of their
programming (HBO Max, Showtime Anytime) which do not require a tra-
ditional cable service. Many cable subscribers prefer to subscribe to indi-
vidual stations online, whether watching them on their computer,
smartphone, iPad, smart TV, or using a gaming system like PlayStation,
Nintendo, X-Box, or other devices such as Firestick, Roku, or Apple TV.
Cable stations, armed with detailed knowledge of exactly what their sub-
scribers like to watch, are producing their own content, relying less and less
on movies for programming. This convergence of television, cable, and
Internet has contributed to an increasing number of high-quality viewing
choices for the public.
The Introduction and Influence of Home Video

The introduction of the home video player in the 1970s marked the
next major transition for the film business. As with television, the
industry’s first reaction to the new technology was fear and resistance.
Home video was seen as sounding a death knell for the theatrical film
business. Commercial-free and with user flexibility for the consumer,
home video was also perceived as a threat to the licensing of theatrical
films for television broadcasting, which had become a lucrative market
for the major studios.
The industry’s first response was a lawsuit against home-video manufac-
turers to enjoin the sale of the devices on the grounds that they could be
used to illegally copy films. The manufacturers prevailed.21
As in the case of television, the majors then held back from licensing the
video rights to their films. But gradually, the studios began to test the
waters with selected licensing of home-video rights to intermediary video
distributors, ceding some of the economic value of these rights to the
intermediaries in exchange for letting them take on the business risks until
the market proved viable. With the rapid growth of the home-video market
in the 1970s, the studios realized the enormous potential of this new mar-
ket and established in-house divisions to license video rights directly to
wholesalers and retailers, cutting out the intermediary distributors. Within
a few years, home-video licensing and sales had become the largest source
of revenue for the film industry, by a wide margin.
The home-video boom sparked the birth of several new production and
distribution companies as well, including Nelson Entertainment, Vestron,
De Laurentiis Entertainment, and Hemdale. These companies financed a

large part of their film budgets through advances from independent video
distribution companies hungry for product. Almost none of these compa-
nies survived the 1980s; their films were unable to compete with studio
films in the theatrical market, and as the growth in the video market began
to level out in the late 1990s, many of the individual video companies went
out of business.
The video market supplanted the free television broadcast market for
new theatrical films. To entice consumers to pay for home videos, the win-
dow for free television had to be pushed back until after the initial exploi-
tation period for video. Within a short period of time, television networks
stopped licensing new feature films. This reshuffling of the release win-
dows—the order in which films are made available to the public after initial
theatrical release—occurs each time a new exploitation format emerges.
Video cassettes morphed into DVDs, until the Internet window began to
cannibalize that profit center. The introduction of Blu-ray DVDs has sup-
plemented the flagging DVD market, without providing a real solution to
the declining medium. With the dominance of streaming, movies in the
form of physical media are decreasing and may vanish completely.
The Restructuring of the Film Studios

The decades of the 1980s and 1990s were marked by realignments and a
restructuring of the film industry. The trend away from the classic studio
model accelerated. Indeed, the physical studios themselves were used mostly
for television production and rarely for films that, more and more, were
shot on location. The majors increased their reliance on projects brought
to them by independent production companies, serving as “banks” that
provided financing in exchange for distribution rights. Production budgets
continued to climb, with the average negative cost of a studio film growing
from $16.8 million in 198522 to $65 million in 2021.23
Faced with these escalating budgets, the majors sought outside off-bal-
ance-sheet financing through investor partnerships and rights deals with
foreign distributors, trading a share of potential profits in successful films
for less overall risk.
Corporate Consolidation and Risk Aversion

The trend toward reducing risk was also driven by a restructuring of
the ownership of most of the majors. By the end of the 1990s only one
stand-alone major film company remained—MGM/UA, which was
acquired by Amazon in 2021. Warner Bros., Paramount, Columbia
Pictures, Universal, and Disney—the companies formed in the first
half of the twentieth century that dominated the industry and were
primarily, if not exclusively, film companies—now operated as divi-

sions of large media conglomerates, with interests in television, music,
publishing, live theater, theme parks, and other activities. In most
cases, the film divisions are relatively small contributors to the overall
revenue and profit of these media groups. Senior managers of these
groups are not inclined to take large risks in the film business due to
possible negative consequences on their company’s stock price.
As was the case following earlier technological and economic develop-
ments, this realignment of ownership in the industry affected the kinds of
films that were produced. Seeking to reduce risk, the majors turned to
large-budget formula movies, starring actors with proven box-office draw-
ing power. This increased the asking price for these actors, further driving
up the cost of producing the films. Thus, remakes, sequels, and film ver-
sions of popular television shows—perceived as less risky—became stan-
dard fare. In the present day, this is accelerated, with streaming competing
for the eyeballs of the studio’s audiences. All of the major producers are
constantly chasing after well-known intellectual property that audiences
are already familiar with, from toys, books, comics, and games. There’s
been a significant shift to superhero movies, and, going forward, it is likely
that there will be much less of other genres in theaters. With Amazon
purchasing MGM, Disney buying Fox, cable and telecommunications
juggernauts like AT&T and Comcast getting into the movie business,
Warner merging with Discovery, there is constant activity in the form of
mergers, acquisitions, and spinoffs. Public companies must conform their
slate of content with the end goal of improving the share prices to please
shareholders.
The Evolution of Film as a Global Business

Another feature of the modern era has been the increasing importance of
foreign markets to the American film industry and the evolution of the for-
eign film industry to a more American-style commercial industry model.
Today, film industries from other countries emulate the American model
in order to become more competitive, while the American film industry, in
creating film production tax incentive programs akin to those in Europe
and Canada, is increasing its effectiveness. The rapid growth of wealth
in China has created a buying spree of Chinese companies purchasing
Hollywood production, finance, and distribution companies from AMC
movie theater chain, IM Global, Legendary Entertainment to distribu-
tor Voltage Pictures, with price tags from the millions up into the billions,
although by mid-2017 the pace of Chinese investment had begun to slow,
partly because of pressure from the Chinese government.
The invention of movie-related technology was global from the outset.
Almost simultaneously with Thomas Edison’s creation and development
of motion picture technology in the United States in the 1890s, the

Lumière Brothers in France created similar technologies and launched
film as a new art form in Europe. The Lumière Brothers and their repre-
sentatives proceeded to demonstrate their Cinematographe around the
globe, traveling to Bombay, St Petersburg, and Shanghai. From there, it
spread quickly to Egypt, Japan, and Australia.24 So in a sense almost
from its inception, film was global. But film as a business remained
domestic; films produced in a country were generally shown only in that
country. The globalization of the business in terms of exporting of films
to other countries did not begin in earnest until after World War II with
the expansion of American film business overseas, in large part to pro-
vide entertainment to moviegoers in other countries whose indigenous
film industries had been crippled during the war. By the end of the twen-
tieth century, film was truly a global business in every sense, with produc-
tion and distribution operations and revenue streams all carried out and
calculated on a worldwide basis.
American filmmakers, with a huge domestic market and a strong pri-
vate financial sector, were better positioned than filmmakers in other
countries to make big-budget action-adventure movies with substantial
production values; the type of movies that appealed to audiences
throughout the world. By 1993, almost 50 percent of the studios’ film
revenue was consistently coming from foreign markets, and foreign dis-
tribution contracts represented a major source of financing for indepen-
dent films produced outside the studio system.25 In the late 1990s into
the 2000s, American film companies also became more aggressive in
financing films by foreign directors who are successful in appealing to
crossover foreign and American audiences; such as Alfonso Cuaron
(Gravity); Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist); Guillermo Del Toro (Pacific
Rim); Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon); Bong
Joon-ho (Snowpiercer, Parasite); Pedro Almodovar (Parallel Mothers,
All About My Mother), and Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind), even shooting the films in a foreign language. The stu-
dios also began to take direct stakes in foreign production companies,
for example Warner Bros.’ joint venture Flagship Entertainment Group,
a China joint venture with CMC Holdings.
Over the past decade, studios have made attempts to expand and partner
in emerging markets with a rapidly rising middle class, such as Brazil,
Russia, India, and China, in order to capitalize on the growing economies,
with mixed success, while Netflix has forged partnerships with local pro-
duction companies worldwide to create more global product. Many stu-
dios and major distribution companies attempted to form joint ventures,
or partnerships in these areas; Chinese company Alibaba Pictures with a
minority stake in Amblin Partners, DreamWorks and Shanghai Pearl
Studios partnership; Disney’s Marvel in Beijing and Hotstar, the Indian
brand of subscription video on demand operated by Disney. While not all

of these deals work out, it’s apparent that opportunities for more rapid
growth are elsewhere and American movie companies are looking abroad.
The growing focus of the studios on foreign markets is also a function of
declining theatrical audiences at home, as the growth of streaming services
has cut into the American appetite for a theatrical experience. At the same
time, the growing middle class in many foreign countries noted above, the
expansion of the exhibition industry in those countries, and technological
developments that make the distribution of films in foreign territories in all
formats easier and less expensive, have further fuelled the studios’ focus on
big-budget action-adventure and comic-book and CGI films which export
well because they rely on spectacle rather than dialogue.
The European movie industry, which had developed as a state-subsi-
dized business producing films primarily local in content, began to evolve
in the 1980s and 1990s into a more commercially driven, privately financed
market as subsidies for film production were gradually reduced and modi-
fied to economically based, rather than artistically driven, models. This
evolution was aided by the privatization and expansion of broadcast tele-
vision throughout Europe, significantly enlarging the secondary markets
for films and allowing European filmmakers to produce larger budget, high
production value films with export value. International coproductions also
flourished during this period, supported by European coproduction fund-
ing, and the new interest of American film companies in partnering on
large-budget films to reduce risk. A consequence of this shift in the
European industry to a more profit-driven, privatized model was that
European films became more competitive in their own countries and
around the world with international hits like the German-produced Toni
Erdmann, Run Lola Run, and the French movies The Intouchables, Portrait
of a Lady on Fire, Amelie, and Italy’s Life is Beautiful, La Grande Bellezza,
and Dogman. The advent of streaming has allowed more American audi-
ences to access foreign movies than ever before.
In regions and countries outside the United States and Europe, film as a
business developed in ways specific to each region, influenced by local
political, economic, cultural, and demographic factors. The potential for
the development and growth of a viable film industry in those regions and
countries was affected by the existence, or the absence of, underlying con-
ditions needed to nurture and sustain an industry.
Without a large enough domestic audience base to generate sufficient
revenues from within the producing country, filmmakers are constrained in
how much they can spend making a film, limiting the production values
and the commercial appeal and competitiveness of their films internation-
ally. Vibrant film industries have flourished primarily in countries with
relatively large domestic population bases, like the United States, United
Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and India.
The development of a film industry also depends on a political environ-

ment and social structure that encourages artistic creativity and free enter-
prise and does not view film as either a useful propaganda tool or a
potentially subversive art form. During the film business’s growth periods
in the last century, many countries like the Soviet Union, China, and the
Eastern European countries during the Soviet era, regulated and censored
film content for political purposes. In addition, many of the same coun-
tries subsidized filmmakers with state funding, similar to the Western
European model, imposing content requirements and barring or limiting
the use of non-local creative talent, resulting in the production of paro-
chial films with little interest to audiences outside the producing country.
Finally, given the costs of producing commercially viable movies that
can compete in the marketplace and support the growth of a sustainable
film industry, sources of private investment capital need to be available to
filmmakers.
The lack of one or more of these necessary conditions in most countries in
Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East meant that, with a few excep-
tions, these regions and countries failed to develop a film industry beyond
small, highly localized, and generally underfunded operations. Now smaller
countries, like Israel among others, can develop movies for a worldwide
audience—streaming has changed everything. Streaming movies and television
shows from all over the world have a large potential audience online. This tech-
nology has become a boon for filmmakers of a certain level, everywhere. Movies
like A Fantastic Woman from Chile, Roma from Mexico, Parasite from South
Korea, and Ida from Poland may have achieved international success by way of
their Oscar, however, they have millions more audiences online who can easily
see their movie due to streaming.
The exceptions were countries in those regions where the necessary con-
ditions prevailed: post-war Japan, India, and South Korea, for example.
China and India offer an interesting contrast. In India, the combination of
a huge domestic audience base, a democratic political system that imposed
few, if any, restrictions on filmmakers, and a private financial sector that
supported the film business, resulted in the development of a vibrant film
industry over the last few decades of the twentieth century, producing
more movies than any other country and, by the start of this century,
beginning to export its films around the world. By contrast, China did not
develop a viable film business despite a huge population base due to a sys-
tem of government regulation and censorship of film production and dis-
tribution, and, until recently, relatively poor economic conditions and the
lack of a private investment sector to support a film industry.
Japan and South Korea, with conditions similar to India, developed
strong local film industries, although filmmakers from these countries,
with some exceptions, have had limited success in producing movies with
export value.
As China’s wealth is increasingly spent in developing its movie industry,

budgets are rising, more theaters are being built, to take advantage of the
vast population of over 1.4 billion people with films like Kung Fu Yoga,
Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, and The Monkey King 2. As
the Chinese film industry flourishes on its own, they have less need of out-
side content, and the pandemic effects caused restructuring, such as
Chinese company Dalian Wanda Group to sell their holdings in AMC.
Chinese box office overtaking the US was a ground-breaking shift in the
movie landscape, as were 3 of the 10 top box office winning movies in 2021
(as of this writing) emanating from China or featuring predominantly
Chinese stories and characters (Hi, Mom, The Battle at Lake Changjin,
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings).
Asia continues to gain as a portion of international box office, com-
pared to other major regions, according to the Motion Picture Association
of America (MPA), as illustrated in the following chart.
Figure 1.3 International Box Office by Region 2016–2020
Other Important Developments

Other significant historical developments include the expansion of the
independent movie company sector and online distribution, availability of
affordable digital production equipment, the rapid digital conversion of
theaters, the development of artificial intelligence tools, virtual produc-
tion, virtual reality and augmented reality films, digital technology and
specifically computer-designed digital special effects, the introduction of
the DVD, Blu-Ray, and the new dominance of streaming worldwide, are
all significant historical developments. These topics will be discussed in
further detail in the chapters about production and distribution.
Independent Movie Companies

Driven by the breakdown of the studio system and the concentration by
the studios on big-budget “tent-pole” movies, the field for smaller bud-
get, more idiosyncratic, artistically focused films was left to independent
producers. Successful independent companies, like Pixar, Miramax, and
New Line, were eventually acquired by the majors, a development mir-
roring the majors’ acquisition of downstream distributors, such as video
companies and cable television systems once the economic viability of
these downstream markets had been proven. While the independent sec-
tor grew significantly at the end of the twentieth century in terms of the
number of films and critical acclaim, exemplified by the many OscarsTM
garnered by independent films. Streaming companies now release movies
in theaters to qualify for Oscars, and recently, Netflix joined the Motion
Picture Association. A consequence of the success of independent cin-
ema, is that every studio acquired and operated various “indie” labels. To
date, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon have not acquired indie labels, although
future purchases aren’t out of the question. Most of the studios oper-
ate some indie label including Warner Bros. and HBO Max with Warner
Max, Disney with Miramax and Searchlight, and Sony Pictures with Sony
Pictures Classics. Lionsgate, patterning itself on the studio model develop-
ing and leveraging independent-style films, has risen to prominence, such
as Lionsgate, also acquiring companies like Roadside Attractions.
Multiplexing
In the 1960s, the theatrical exhibition business began a shift from single-
screen theaters to multiple-screen locations—the multiplex. This shift was
propelled by the post–World War II growth of suburbs and exurbs, and
the emergence of the shopping center as a retail hub, driving large num-
bers of potential moviegoers to a single location. With a concentration of
audiences in one place it made sense to offer a variety of movies suited to
different tastes and audiences at that location.
The AMC theater chain (American Multi-Cinema at that time) opened,
in 1963, the first double-screened movie theater in a shopping center in
Kansas City, Missouri, following up with four-screen, then six-screen the-
aters by 1969; it is the largest chain currently with 11,041 screens.26 Some
of the biggest multiplexes currently, such as Kineopolis Group, have up to
25 screens in a single theater location in Madrid, Spain, seating 200–1,000
people per screen.27
By the 1990s, the multiplex was the dominant retail model, sparking an
enormous increase in the number of available screens, leading to ever larger
opening weekends and even greater reliance on big-budget films that could
be released nationally on 3,000–5,000 screens; 4,662 theaters for the 2019
film Avengers: Endgame, and 4,336 theaters worldwide for Spider-Man: No

Way Home (2021). This simultaneously drove up marketing and advertis-
ing budgets. At the same time, more screens were available for independent
films, supporting the growth of that sector. The development of computer-
designed digital special-effects technology opened up extraordinary new
possibilities for filmmakers, exemplified by films such as the Marvel films,
Legos franchise and more climbing over the $1 billion dollar mark for box
office grosses like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Star Wars: The Rise of
Skywalker, Frozen II, Avengers: Endgame.28 These special effects-driven
epics became the most commercially successful movies of all time, with
huge global audiences, further entrenching the big-budget “tent-pole” film
as the dominant studio product model, and driving production costs even
higher. The digital special-effects phenomenon is another example of a
new technology that changed not only how films were made, but also what
kind of films got made. Today, the biggest movie releases open routinely on
4,000+ screens, and most of those are laden with special effects.
Convergence and Disruption

The definition of convergence is moving toward a union, or coming
together. There are many examples of convergence in the movie industry,
typically caused by developments in technology and access to capital.
Disruption is a radical change in an industry or strategy, involving the
introduction of a new product or service that creates a new market.
Convergence may cause disruption, as new business models are formed,
disrupting the previous models; and disruption may cause convergence,
such as technologies forcing combined media offerings.
Examples of convergence in film include the transition of cable channels
to home-based movie theaters (early cable channels showed Hollywood
films almost exclusively). Currently most disruptive is technological con-
vergence, the combination of high-speed internet, and internet enabling
content retailers to use streaming technology, creating new business
models—such as Amazon, Apple, Netflix—which have become dominant
distributors of films forcing change on the studios, including simultaneous
theatrical and streaming release.
Mobile technology on smartphones and tablets combined with fast
internet speeds (convergence), and a variety of websites offering videos
(also convergence), have changed the way we watch movies and television
(disruption). We can now watch filmed entertainment wherever and when-
ever we want.
OTT, or over-the-top viewing (essentially internet video streaming or
download) is an example of convergence; content that combines audio,
video, and other media transmitted via the Internet without the need for
multiple cable or direct-broadcast satellite television systems, resulting in
Another random document with
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responsibilities of a believer which could never thereafter be
relinquished. These laws, while apparently of a religious character,
were, owing to the Moslem constitution which united the functions of
both spiritual and temporal sovereignty, vitally necessary to the
dignity and maintenance of government. Christian fanatics, blinded
by prejudice and eager for martyrdom, regarded them as
unreasonable and tyrannical restrictions, whose public violation was
a duty which they owed to their sect; meritorious, not only as
evincing contempt for a detested religion, but as affording
opportunities for exhibitions of self-sacrifice, certain to elicit the
praise of their companions, and likely to deserve the coveted honor
of canonization. All, therefore, that was required of the Christians
living under Moslem jurisdiction was that they should pay tribute
regularly and obey the laws of the land.
To insure the protection to which they were entitled, and to secure
them from insult and oppression, a special magistrate was
appointed, under the khalifs, to watch over their interests and
supervise their conduct. This official, whose title was that of katib, or
secretary, was invested with extraordinary powers, and was usually
a noble of distinguished rank as well as a personage of high
consideration in the Divan.
At the time of the Conquest, a certain number of churches were
set aside for Christian worship; but that number could not be
increased, nor could additions be even made to the ancient edifices.
In case reconstruction or repairs were necessary, the identical old
materials were required to be used. The stringency of these rules
was, however, often relaxed by the generous indulgence of the
authorities. The law which forbade that a building erected by a
Christian should be of greater height than that of a Moslem was also
frequently evaded. In Spain and Sicily the towers of church and
cathedral often overtopped the minaret of the mosque, an implication
of superiority which, in other countries of the Mohammedan world,
would have caused their instant demolition. In those two kingdoms of
Islam alone the use of bells was tolerated. Elsewhere, boards
suspended by cords and beaten with mallets took their place and
announced the opening of Christian service. The greatest liberty was
permitted in the exercise of public worship. The clergy wore their
sacred vestments. They discharged the duties of their holy calling in
peace and security, and those who ventured to interfere with them
were liable to severe punishment. They celebrated mass with all the
pomp of the ancient Visigothic ceremonial. The priest carried the
viaticum to the dying, in solemn procession through the crowded
streets. The bodies of the dead, enveloped in the smoke of tapers
and incense, and preceded by chanting choristers, were borne to the
cathedral for the performance of the final rites of the Church. The
toleration of the Spanish Moslems even went to the extent of
permitting the use of images—execrated as idolatrous by every
follower of the Prophet—in Christian temples. Effigies of saints were
by no means rare. In the Cathedral of Santa Maria at Cordova was a
statue of the Virgin. Her shrine was famous for its sanctity, and, more
accessible than that of Santiago, yearly attracted multitudes of
devout pilgrims from every part of Europe. In each church was
preserved the body of the martyr to whom the sacred edifice was
dedicated, and from whom it derived its name. The great city of
Cordova contained six Christian houses of worship besides the
cathedral. Eleven monasteries and convents offered a refuge to
those who sought the devotional retirement of cloistered life. Of
these, three were in the city and eight upon the wooded slopes of the
Sierra Morena. Some, instituted probably with a view to the
acquisition of increased merit by resistance to constant temptation,
were occupied by both sexes under a single abbot. The monks
appeared in cowl and tonsure; the nuns were constantly veiled. All
members of the monastic orders, as well as those of the secular
priesthood, traversed at will and unmolested the streets of the
capital. St. Eulogius, Cyprian, Samson, and other contemporaneous
ecclesiastical writers bear repeated and voluntary testimony to the
indulgent forbearance extended to Christians by the Khalifs of
Cordova.
In Sicily, practically the same conditions prevailed. As, however,
the indigenous population overwhelmingly exceeded in number that
of the invaders, toleration was necessary for the maintenance of
public tranquillity, and was, in fact, a measure of expediency as well
as of justice. The civil organization of the Byzantine Empire was
continued. The magistrates retained the same titles and exercised
the same jurisdiction as formerly, subject always to the supervision
of the officials of the Divan. The procedure of the ancient tribunals
was but slightly modified. The rights of person and property were
fully recognized. Freedom of worship was guaranteed to all law-
abiding tributaries. Taxation was uniform and regular; the legal
impositions were far less onerous than those exacted by the
tyrannical rapacity of the Greek administration. Under the Moors, all
persons whose condition or infirmities prevented them from obtaining
a livelihood were exempt; the Byzantine fiscal agents carried their
merciless perquisitions into the abodes of helplessness, disease,
and destitution. The Moslem law regulating the distribution of estates
and the rights of heirs was so admirably adapted to the purpose, that
it was continued, with trifling modifications, by the Normans, after it
had been in force for nearly two centuries. No lands were
confiscated but those which had been abandoned by their owners.
The number of these was so great that they afforded ample space
for the settlements of the Saracen colonists, who occupied the most
valuable portions of the States of Trapani, Palermo, and Agrigentum.
The restrictions imposed upon the Sicilian Christians were more
harsh than the requirements exacted of their Spanish brethren. The
general provisions of the Mohammedan code relating to the
prohibited acts of misbelievers were, of course, rigidly enforced. The
Christian priests of Sicily, like those of Spain, were compelled to
perform the rites of their religion behind closed doors. Like them
also, they were forbidden to publicly discuss the merits of their creed
or to attempt to secure proselytes. The laws of that island,
considering the numerical weakness of the dominant race, were
strangely severe. As tokens of degradation, peculiar marks were
placed upon the houses of Christians; they were restricted to a
costume distinctive in materials and color, and wore girdles of
woollen cloth or leather. They were forbidden to mount a horse, to
own saddles, to bear arms. They could not use seals with Arabic
inscriptions or give their children Arabic names. In the streets they
gave way to their Saracen masters, and always stood with bowed
heads in their presence. Drinking wine in the sight of a Mussulman
was visited with exemplary punishment. No Christian woman was
allowed to remain in the bath with a Mohammedan, even though the
latter were one of the humblest maid-servants of the harem. If one of
the tributary sect admitted the slave of a Mussulman into his house,
he was liable to a heavy fine. The ringing of the bells of church or
monastery loudly was prohibited, as was also the reading of the
Scriptures in the hearing of the followers of the Prophet. No Christian
could cross himself in public. The slightest interference with Moslem
worship was punishable with death.
Despite these arbitrary and often oppressive laws, the condition of
the Christians of Sicily was, upon the whole, far more agreeable and
prosperous under the Arabs than it had been under the Greeks.
Relief from arbitrary taxation made secure the profits of industry.
Every branch of commerce was open to the enterprising. The system
of guilds and corporations, which had existed among tradesmen
since the Roman domination, remained unimpaired. If a Christian
distrusted the integrity or capacity of his own magistrate, he was at
liberty to submit his cause to the kadi, who rendered judgment
according to the maxims and precedents of Moslem jurisprudence.
In the Spanish Peninsula, the government of the Church
presented a strange and portentous anomaly. As the representative
of Islam was a member of the family of the Ommeyades, which had,
in the beginning, exerted all the influence of a powerful caste to
overwhelm its founder and render his teachings odious, so now the
interests of Christianity were delivered over to the tender mercies of
its hereditary and most unrelenting foe. The Visigothic sovereigns,
chosen by ecclesiastical councils, were, by virtue of their election,
clothed with a certain degree of sanctity, and enjoyed an ample
measure of spiritual power. The monarch practically controlled the
policy of the Church. His decision was final in all matters not
important enough to be submitted to the assembled wisdom of the
great ecclesiastical dignitaries of the kingdom. He consecrated
bishops. He exercised without question the sacerdotal rights of
presentation, translation, investiture. He convoked councils. The fate
of every member of the hierarchy, from acolyte to archbishop, was in
his hands. Even the metropolitan see of Toledo, the primacy of
Spain, could not be filled without his sanction. He could appoint the
most unworthy candidate to the most exalted station in the
priesthood. He could arbitrarily depose ministers whose lives had
exhibited the practice of every Christian virtue. He interpreted and
dictated the application of intricate points of ecclesiastical law.
Notwithstanding the apparent ascendency of the sacerdotal order in
the temporal affairs of the government on the one hand, it was
largely neutralized on the other by the influence of the Crown over
the fortunes of the Church, an influence always weighty and often
predominant.
These prerogatives, dangerous to religious liberty and liable to
abuse even in the hands of an orthodox sovereign, were transmitted,
in all their force, to the Arabian khalifs, as the lords of the lost
heritage of the Visigothic kings. The principle upon which such
authority could pass to the head of a hostile sect, whose sworn
purpose was the annihilation of the very religion which he was
presumed, by virtue of his office, in duty bound to protect, has not
been, and never can be, explained by any considerations of honor,
consistency, or equity. It was practically a flagrant usurpation of
privileges for which the Moslem sovereign could not allege even a
shadow of right. It was not conferred by conquest. It could not be
accounted for under the color of a legal fiction. Supremacy in
ecclesiastical government, where the practice of public worship was
guaranteed by treaty, and the clergy purchased by tribute the
management of their affairs and the enforcement of discipline,
certainly was not implied by the fact that it had been enjoyed by the
ruling prince of the vanquished faith. Its peaceful exercise for
centuries—for its validity does not seem to have been questioned in
the writings of even the most bigoted ecclesiastics—is one of the
most singular problems of religious history.
The consequences of this anomalous condition were, as may
readily be conjectured, fatal to the dignity and order of the Catholic
hierarchy. The khalif was, to all intents and purposes, the spiritual
head of two hostile religions,—one of which it was his duty, as well
as his inclination, to exalt; the other of which he was prompted by the
prejudices of race, inheritance, and belief to destroy. There were few
Hispano-Arab monarchs who did not contribute their share to the
degradation of Christianity. The highest offices of the Church were
put up at auction. The orthodoxy and fitness of the candidate were
never considered; his qualifications were ignored; and his success
was dependent upon the amount he was willing to disburse for the
coveted dignity. In this scandalous traffic the women of the harems
and the eunuchs were the recognized agents of the purchaser.
There was no secrecy about these transactions. The practice of
simony was so universal that even the greatest offenders made no
attempt to conceal it. A profligate canon, named Saul, entered into a
written obligation to pay these corrupt intermediaries four hundred
ounces of silver for the bishopric of Cordova. Some of those raised
to the richest sees of the Peninsula were heretics or infidels. It was
not unusual for a prelate, even during Holy Week, to abandon the
service of the altar and indulge in the most shameless excesses of
drunkenness and debauchery. The ordinances of the Church were
interpreted by men ignorant of the first rudiments of ecclesiastical
law. Priests, whose atheism was notorious, administered the
sacraments with mock humility and imparted hypocritical consolation
to the devout. If any of his flock eluded the search of the tax-
collector, the bishop, more faithful to the power to which he owed his
authority than to the interests of the congregation over which he
presided, stood ready to furnish the desired information from the
registers of the diocese, and to assist in the punishment of the
delinquents. When a prelate disregarded the summons to a council,
the vacancy was filled by the appointment of a Mussulman or a Jew.
Such circumstances as these were not propitious to either sacerdotal
welfare or successful proselytism.
Nor were abuses of power confined to the ecclesiastical system.
The dignity of count, the most eminent office of the Christian
magistracy, was also a subject of negotiation and barter. The
opportunities it afforded for extortion and peculation made it one of
the most lucrative employments in the gift of the khalif. It was
ordinarily bestowed upon a member of the Visigothic nobility, but the
rapacity of the eunuchs looked rather to the means than to the birth
of the aspirant; and persons of base origin and doubtful integrity not
infrequently received the coveted distinction, which was utilized
largely for the benefit of their patrons,—the fiscal officers and the
degraded servitors of the harem. Count Servandus, the son of a
slave, who lived during the reign of the Khalif Mohammed, has been
handed down to the execration of all good Christians as one of the
most cruel and infamous of oppressors. On a single occasion, he
extorted from his unhappy vassals the enormous sum of a hundred
thousand solidi, equal in our time to more than half a million dollars.
The various gradations of the hierarchy were preserved as before
the Arab occupation. The archbishops had the usual number of
suffragans subject to their jurisdiction; the lower orders of the clergy,
their clerks, choristers, readers, and other subordinates. To exercise
the office of priest it was necessary for both parents to be of the
Christian faith; if the father were a Moslem, the law of the conqueror
interposed its claim upon the candidate, who, regarded as a
Mussulman by birth, was liable to condemnation for apostasy. Unlike
the canonical practice of other Catholic countries, an ecclesiastic
was eligible to offices of the most distinguished rank, even to the
primacy itself, without being compelled to pass through the
intermediate grades of the priesthood. There was no diminution of
pomp or solemnity in the celebration of the rites of Christian worship.
Councils for the regulation of church government and discipline were
even more frequent than under the Visigoths; during the ninth
century, three were held at Cordova alone in less than thirty-five
years. In many of the monasteries, schools were established for the
communication of instruction, on both sacred and profane subjects,
to those whose religious scruples prevented them from profiting by
the splendid opportunities afforded by the great Arab institutions of
learning. In some of these religious houses were extensive libraries,
composed for the most part, however, of treatises of patristic
science, polemics, and hagiology. To St. Eulogius, alarmed by the
increasing influence of the Mussulman academies, which offered
irresistible attractions to the Christian youth, is due the credit of
having introduced to the notice of his countrymen the works of
Horace, Virgil, Juvenal, and others of the Latin classics, copies of
which he obtained during a visit to Navarre.
In Spain, as in Sicily, the influence of the Holy See disappeared
with the advent of Moslem supremacy. The clergy of the khalifate
became independent of the Papacy, and did not even recognize the
authority of the Asturian priesthood, whose members held councils
and promulgated canons, with a nominal allegiance to Rome. In the
abeyance of Papal representation, the Metropolitan of Toledo was
the supreme head of the Spanish hierarchy. The Christians of Sicily
acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople.
During the Moorish occupation of Southern France, the existing
religion was scarcely interfered with. No counts were appointed to
govern or oppress the conquered. No unworthy prelates were
assigned to rich sees as the result of intrigue or corruption. Few
churches were transformed into mosques. The only attempt to
restrain the Christian tributaries was shown by a disposition to
isolate, as far as possible, the clergy of the provincial settlements
from those of the larger towns. The tolerance of Mussulman rule is
disclosed by the great preponderance of the subject race existing at
Narbonne, which was always rather a Christian than a Moslem
capital.
The long independence of the Spanish Church exerted no
inconsiderable influence upon its subsequent history. Its isolation
enabled it to preserve uncontaminated the ancient forms and
discipline transmitted by ecclesiastical tradition from apostolic times.
The authority of its councils or the validity of their canons was never
questioned by the most exacting dignitaries of the Roman hierarchy
after it had again acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Papal See. Its
orthodoxy was never impeached. While Europe was distracted by
heresy, no daring religious innovator threatened the integrity or
disputed the power of the ecclesiastical government of the
Peninsula. Its policy was inimical to change in organization, in
ceremonial, in doctrine. Of all the religious ceremonials in
Christendom its liturgy showed the least alteration, not even
excepting that used in St. Peter’s at Rome. When in 1067 King
Alfonso of Leon submitted the rival claims of the Gothic and Roman
rituals first to the wager of battle and then to the ordeal of fire, the
Christians of Arabian Spain resolutely adhered to the ancient and
time-honored formulary. The only schisms recorded were those
which sprang from the conflicting ambition of rival prelates. Under
the iron rule of the khalifs no irregular councils assembled to disturb
the harmony or excite the doubts of the Faithful. The principal abuse
that existed was the fraudulent manufacture of charters, and the
multitude of these pious forgeries whose spurious character has
been exposed indicate at once the ease with which such documents
could be issued, as well as the profit that must have attended their
fabrication. The generally undisturbed condition of the Mozarabes
under the sway of the House of Ommeyah is the best evidence of
their enjoyment of the blessings of civil and religious liberty.
Their social customs and mode of life show in many particulars a
close affiliation with their masters. They had forgotten the rude idiom
of their fathers. Arabic was the language in common use among all
classes of the tributary population, both Jew and Christian. It was an
indispensable requisite of official position that the incumbent should
possess a competent knowledge of that tongue. St. Eulogius
repeatedly deplores the fact that its prevalence was universal in the
Peninsula. Its popularity increased with time, and was so great
during the domination of the Almoravides that the Archbishop of
Seville caused the Bible to be translated into Arabic, in order that it
might be intelligible to the priests of his diocese. The peculiar
phrases of Moslem intercourse, such as “God preserve you!” “May
you rest in heaven!” constantly on the lips of the reverent
Mohammedan, formed part of the daily greetings of every Christian.
They gave their children Arabic names. Their attire and their furniture
were similar to those of the dominant race. The conspicuous tokens
of degradation imposed upon the Mozarabes of Sicily were unknown
in Spain even under the Almoravide bigots. The confidence reposed
in their fidelity, and the respect with which their courage was
regarded, were evinced by their constant enrolment in the body-
guard of the khalifs. Partly from a desire to propitiate the favor of
their rulers, and perhaps through conviction of their physiological
benefits, they abstained from pork, and adopted the rite of
circumcision,—concessions which, once granted, practically left the
repetition of the Moslem formula the sole remaining barrier between
the followers of Christ and the sectaries of Mohammed. These
practices, elsewhere unknown to the Christian communities of
Europe, excited the wonder and abhorrence of the stout old monk,
John de Gorza, ambassador of the German Emperor to the court of
Abd-al-Rahman. He denounced them in unmeasured terms to the
Archbishop of Cordova, who excused their observance under the
plea of necessity, and as customs long countenanced by the Church,
a statement which indicates that in the tenth century they had
already been in use for many generations. In a spirit of charity,
greatly at variance with the intolerant hatred displayed towards the
Moors in subsequent ages, prayers were regularly offered for the
khalif in every Christian church of Arabian Spain.
Every circumstance relating to the habits and intercourse of the
two races which has come down to us proves that, openly at least,
they did not consider each other as enemies. Great numbers of
Christians embraced with eagerness the extraordinary educational
benefits afforded by the schools and academies of the khalifate. The
University of Cordova, open to individuals of every rank, creed, and
nationality, was attended by Christian students, not only resident in
the Peninsula, but attracted from almost every country of Europe.
The infidel doctrines taught in that famous institution had long
provoked the animadversion of Moslem theologians; but the
prejudices they excited among orthodox Mussulmans were far less
intense and bitter than the aversion entertained towards the
professors of these opinions by the Catholic clergy. Intermarriages
were frequent, although public sentiment, as well as the policy of
Islam, discouraged such alliances. A far greater number of women
than of men renounced their ancestral faith in consequence of these
unions, and the majority of proselytes were those who embraced the
religion of Mohammed.
Important civil employments were repeatedly conferred upon
Christians eminent for their talents and integrity. The expostulations
of the faquis and the united influence of the Divan were hardly
sufficient to prevent Abd-al-Rahman III. from appointing a renegade,
whose parents were both Christians, to the office of Grand Kadi of
Cordova, the highest judicial position of the empire. The latter
monarch habitually employed Christian prelates in missions requiring
the exercise of the greatest tact and ability. Rabi, Archbishop of
Cordova, was sent on different occasions as envoy to the courts of
Germany and Constantinople. It was he who was intrusted with the
conveyance of valuable gifts from the Emperor of the East to the
Khalif, among them the fountains of the palace of Medina-al-Zahrâ.
The Bishop of Granada was selected to secure the withdrawal by the
German Emperor of the scurrilous letter which the fanatic John de
Gorza was charged to deliver, a task of great responsibility and one
which few were either competent or willing to undertake. Another
prelate of episcopal rank was also despatched by Abd-al-Rahman to
congratulate Otho on his victory over the Hungarians. The
predilection of Ali for members of the nominally prescribed sect
constantly aroused the indignation and alarm of the Almoravide
zealots.
Christians were not excluded from the most responsible posts of
the Moorish fiscal administration. They discharged with skill and
fidelity the duties connected with all the various employments of the
revenue. To members of their sect was invariably committed the
collection of the tribute due from their co-religionists. Thousands of
them served in the Mussulman armies. When Barcelona was
besieged by the Franks, the Christian residents of that city fought
side by side with the Moslems against the orthodox King of
Aquitaine. Of all nationalities, the Spanish Christians were
considered most worthy to guard the sacred person of the khalif. At
no period of the Arab domination were they absolutely excluded from
court. Under the administration of the Almoravide sultan, Ali, who
was conspicuous among the fanatical princes of his line for the
strictness of his orthodoxy and the austerity of his manners, the
Mozarabes were in high favor, and exerted an almost preponderating
influence in the government.
Although in theory belonging to an inferior caste, in fact the
tributary could not, by the unpractised eye, be distinguished from the
votary of Islam. His life, his habits, his language, were the same. His
house was an exact counterpart of that of his Moorish neighbor; his
garments were cut after the pattern of the Orient. His manners were
no longer suggestive of the rudeness of his Gothic ancestors. When
his means permitted, he went to great lengths in the gratification of
propensities censured by the canons of his Church,—entertained
catamites, indulged in polygamous practices, and filled his harem
with female slaves guarded by retinues of eunuchs.
But while the line of demarcation between Moslem and Christian
was thus faintly drawn, and threatened, in the course of time, to
entirely disappear through the fusion of the two races, there still
existed in the minds not only of the zealots of the hostile sects, but
also in those of the masses, a profound and irreconcilable antipathy.
This prejudice was sedulously and successfully nourished by the
Mohammedan faquis as well as by the Christian clergy. The
tributaries, while apparently on the point of merging into the body of
the conquerors, were in reality isolated from them by the most
powerful emotions that can influence the human heart. No
concessions could thoroughly eradicate the prejudices arising from
difference of religious belief. No familiarities of social intercourse
could banish the humiliating remembrance of conquest. No political
honors could compensate for the injuries inflicted by racial animosity.
The actual condition of the Spanish Christians was, therefore, the
reverse of that exhibited by their daily life. In the presence of a
mutual antagonism, all the more violent for being repressed, there
could be no thorough amalgamation of races. The exalted spirit of
religious enthusiasm which could voluntarily solicit the tortures of
martyrdom was not propitious to national apostasy.
And yet the circumstances which appear most conspicuous and
vital in the consideration of this ethnological paradox would seem to
point to an opposite conclusion. A community of customs generally
existed in which those of the Arab always predominated. The
harems of the Moslems were filled with Christian maidens who had,
without hesitancy or compensation, renounced the faith of their
fathers. The corrupted Latin dialect of the Visigoths, proscribed by
Hischem I., was almost extinct. The law forbade it to be either written
or spoken; and it survived only in the massive volumes of the
Fathers or in the secluded intercourse of the occupants of
monasteries and convents. By the same decree of the Khalif,
education in the Arabian schools was made compulsory. Alvarus,
who wrote about the middle of the ninth century, declares that not
one Christian could be found among a thousand who could compose
a letter in Latin. On the other hand, the popularity of the Arab writers,
and the enthusiasm with which their compositions were perused by
persons of all ages, were in the eyes of pious ecclesiastics a national
scandal. The growing inclination to apostasy, the natural result of
these associations, was also one of the crowning grievances of the
Spanish clergy. As heretofore stated, it is a fact, well established by
the reluctant testimony of the Fathers themselves, that the greater
part of the conquered nation had fallen away from Christianity.
Many causes had conspired to produce this lamentable condition
of affairs. The geographical isolation of the Peninsula, which has
always had a tendency to preserve unaltered the mental and
physical characteristics of its people, has also had no unimportant
influence upon the national faith. That country, even at the time of
the Saracen invasion, was Christian only in name. It had never
wholly discarded its Pagan forms or traditions. It was the last
kingdom of Europe to nominally accept the new religion. Its creed
had long been heterodox, and that creed it had abandoned, without
remonstrance or regret, at the command of its sovereign. The
despotic power of the hierarchy had never been able to abolish the
ceremonies of Pagan antiquity which were incorporated with the
ritual of the Church. The population, the offspring of a score of
nations, each of which worshipped different divinities and was
familiar with the fraudulent pretensions of many sacerdotal claimants
to inspiration, was inclined to discredit and deride them all. To such a
society religious professions and formalities were naturally matters of
indifference. A nation which could spontaneously abandon the
heresy of Arius would hardly hesitate to embrace the monotheistic
doctrines of Mohammed. By the Moslems, so far as their tributaries
were concerned, no open inducements were offered for apostasy.
The practice of Islam discouraged the active proselytism advocated
by other sects. The conversion of a Christian tributary, unless he had
violated the law, must be voluntary, and the obligation, once
assumed, could never be renounced.
The favor enjoyed by the renegade was, however, a far more
powerful incentive than any that the promises of the ministers of
religion could evoke. The apostate was at once received into full
social communion with his former masters. He was eligible to the
highest political and military honors. In theory, at least, no stigma
could attach to his former condition or antecedents. The equality of
all men who professed belief in its dogmas was, as is well known,
the cardinal principle of the law of the Prophet.
To the slave, these considerations appealed with peculiar force.
Tens of thousands of this oppressed and degraded caste had been
transferred, at a single stroke by the fortunes of war, from the hands
of one master to those of another. A host of captives had been taken
in battle. In the minds of but few of these unfortunates the obligations
of religion were deeply founded. While emancipation did not
invariably follow the profession of the faith of Islam, it usually did;
and the condition of the slave was always greatly improved by this
concession to the prejudices of him who regulated his conduct and
controlled his destiny. In view of these facts, there is little wonder
that multitudes of slaves embraced the Mussulman doctrines.
The religious freedom of the Christians under Moslem rule was
mainly dependent on the prejudices of their own clergy, the character
of the dominant faction, and the temper of the sovereign. The
provisions of the treaties which guaranteed their privileges were at
first strictly observed. The general influx of fanatical foreigners, in
time, however, created a strong public sentiment against the
proscribed tributaries. They were sometimes deprived of their
houses of worship. Arbitrary contributions were frequently exacted
from them. On one occasion, the Christians of Cordova were
compelled to pay into the treasury the sum of a hundred thousand
pieces of gold, nearly a million and a quarter dollars. The revenues
of the Church were so impaired by these grievous impositions, that
ecclesiastics were often forced to engage in commercial pursuits to
provide for the pressing necessities of their order. Some carried the
manufactures of Cordova to Germany. Others journeyed as peddlers
through France. The trading priest of Moorish Spain was well known
in the markets of Genoa and Constantinople. Persons in clerical garb
were no longer safe in public places. In the time of the Almoravides,
when a Christian passed through the streets, the crowd shrank from
contact with him as from one stricken with the plague. Religious
processions were pelted by mobs of hooting children, and those who
took part in them were fortunate if they escaped without serious
personal injury. The ringing of the church-bells provoked the loud
threats and curses of intemperate zealots. The breaking up of a
congregation during Holy Week was often the signal for a riot. The
vengeance of Allah upon the idolater was invoked by the scoffing
bystanders when the corpse of a Christian was consigned to the
grave.
The clergy, against whom these insults were principally aimed,
were naturally exasperated by the indignity suffered by their creed
and their profession. Their ignorance, in spite of the example and the
benefits of Moslem civilization ever before their eyes, was not less
dense than that of their brethren of Catholic Europe. With every
opportunity to familiarize themselves with the tenets of Islam, and
thoroughly conversant with Arabic, they steadfastly declined to honor
the alleged revelations of the Prophet with their attention or perusal.
Their opinions on this subject they obtained from the writings of
fanatical monks, fully as ignorant as, and even more bigoted than,
themselves. The sage conclusion which they arrived at from these
researches was that the doctrines of the most uncompromising of
monotheists and image-breakers were Pagan and idolatrous.
Apprehensive of violence if they ventured to show themselves in
public, they remained almost constantly in the seclusion of their
dwellings. Even the sacred calls of duty remained unanswered.
Often, for weeks, mass was not celebrated. The pulpit and the
confessional were deserted. The dying passed away unshriven.
Maddened by rage and terror, they were scarcely accessible even to
their sympathizing parishioners, who themselves incurred the risk of
ill-treatment from the populace in their visits to the episcopal palace
and the parsonage. Brooding over their wrongs, encouraged by the
promises and exhortations of the Fathers of the Church, wresting the
texts of Scripture to their purpose, fasting many consecutive days,
praying for hours at a time, exhausted by penance, their enthusiasm
became wrought up to the highest pitch. From such a condition the
progress to martyrdom is easy.
The persecution of the Christians of Spain was inflicted, for the
most part, under the reigns of Abd-al-Rahman II. and Mohammed.
The annoyances to which they were subjected were by no means so
serious as they subsequently became, when the influence of the
Africans preponderated. The word persecution, implying as it does
the tyrannical abuse of superior power, is not applicable to the
circumstances under which the Mozarabes were sent to the scaffold.
They were rather criminals than martyrs. They voluntarily offered
themselves for the sacrifice. They denounced the religion of Islam as
false and idolatrous. They reviled the name of the Prophet. They
rushed into the mosques. When the voice of the muezzin resounded
from the minaret, they crossed themselves, and cried out, “Save us,
O Lord, from the call of the Evil One, both now and in eternity!” In
their eagerness to court destruction, they pushed their way into the
tribunals, and, in the presence of the judge, gave utterance to their
blasphemies. Even the majesty of the throne was not respected by
these frantic enthusiasts. St. Pelayus called the Khalif a dog to his
face. St. Isaac, not content with heaping abuse on Mohammed,
grossly insulted the Grand Kadi of Cordova. Such offences were
capital under the law, and admitted of neither extenuation nor
pardon.
At first, the magistrates, moved by astonishment and compassion,
refused to condemn persons whose actions seemed attributable only
to intoxication or insanity. But the deluded wretches would accept no
indulgence. Thrown into prison, they continued their revilings. Their
spurious zeal, mistaken constancy, and self-inflicted tortures
produced many imitators. Their cells became places of pilgrimage.
From them each day went forth new candidates for pious
consideration, fresh victims for the executioner. Some were hanged,
others beheaded. Not a few were burned at the stake and their
ashes cast into the river. The bitter feelings engendered by religious
controversy were not confined to Mohammedans. The ties of blood
seemed for a time forgotten or ignored. The hiding-places of the
accused were revealed by their own kindred. Brothers and sisters
denounced each other for the sake of the property they might inherit.
But the punishment only aggravated the evil. The number of martyrs
constantly multiplied. A great many of these came from the laity.
Youths of tender age excited the wonder and admiration of the
devout by the boldness of their utterances and the unflinching
courage with which they met their fate. Delicate women walked
barefoot for leagues, nominally to share the glory of dying for the
Faith, in reality to solicit the infliction of the extreme penalty of
violated law.
The contagion of example spread fast through the Christian
community of Cordova. No distinction was now so honorable as to
stand in the foremost rank of the blasphemers of the Prophet. In this
pious and meritorious performance, the secular clergy were,
however, not conspicuous. Their lives were entirely too precious to
be endangered so long as members of their flocks were eager to
demonstrate their willingness to die for a perverted religious
principle, involving an unprovoked breach of the contract from which
they derived security of worship, life, and property. In secret, they
promoted the increasing madness by prayer and vehement
exhortation. The impulse to the spirit of spontaneous martyrdom was
not a little stimulated by the honors paid to the victims. Independent
of both Roman and Asturian influence, the Andalusian hierarchy
conferred without delay the distinction of canonization upon each
aspirant for celestial glory. Their remains were conveyed to the
churches, where they at once began to disclose their supernatural
powers by response to prayer, by the cure of disease, by the working
of portentous and astonishing miracles.
The Moslem authorities were appalled by the strange conduct of
their tributaries, insensible alike to the inducement of clemency or
the dread of punishment. In the hope of abating the evil by summary
measures, Abd-al-Rahman II. authorized, by public edict, any one to
kill on the instant a Christian who was guilty of blasphemy. This
decree, while not fully accomplishing its object, lessened the number
of applicants for martyrdom and produced a great increase of
apostates and fugitives.
But the mania which impelled the most fanatical to self-sacrifice
was far from infecting the entire Christian population of the capital.
There were many who looked with disapproval upon a course which
must eventually result in the oppression of their sect, in the increase
of its burdens, in the curtailment of its privileges. They foresaw that
the acts of a few irresponsible individuals would ere long be
regarded by the Moslem government as the authorized policy of the
Church. Many Christians held office under the administration. It was
only a question of time, if these disturbances continued, when they
would be dismissed from their employments. The khalifate was then
at the height of its power. If an uprising provoked by the clergy
should occur, as seemed not improbable, the entire tributary sect
might be exterminated; and, indeed, this measure had already been
vehemently urged by the intolerant African marabouts. In any event,
there would be arbitrary taxation, confiscation, violence, exile. In
their extremity, the more sober-minded of the Christians petitioned
the Khalif to summon a council, whose decision might be
authoritative and final in determining the duty of the people in the
present emergency.
All the prelates in the jurisdiction of the khalifate were accordingly
convoked. Abd-al-Rahman appointed as his representative an official
named Gomez, prominent in the administration, nominally attached
to the Christian communion, but of suspicious morals and of more
than suspicious orthodoxy. He was a man of fine education,
conspicuous talents, polished manners, insufferable pride, and
enormous wealth. The head of the faction which had, in vain,
endeavored to check the increasing disposition to martyrdom which
menaced the destruction of his sect, he had incurred the
unmeasured hatred of the clergy. Realizing fully the fatal
consequences of the insane acts of his co-religionists if unrestrained,
his interest concurred with his inclination to repress the dangerous
manifestations of their intemperate zeal before it became too late.
With great ability and eloquence he presented his views to the
council. The assembled prelates, awed by the government and
possessing little sympathy for those who were destroying the credit
of their order, were not disinclined to condemn these fanatical
suicides. But here a serious difficulty arose. The martyrs had been
canonized. Their relics had already demonstrated their sanctity by
the production of miracles. Their bodies were enshrined in the
shadow of the altar; their deeds and their sufferings were now a part
of the history of the Church. It was therefore manifestly impolitic, as
well as sacrilegious, to attempt to deprive them of the rank in the
celestial hierarchy which had been conferred by the infallible wisdom
of God. A middle course was possible. The council, silent upon past
martyrdoms, prohibited them in the future. Like all temporizing
measures intended to correct deeply rooted abuses, this evasion of
the issue left matters worse than before. The extremists, headed by
St. Eulogius, declared that the real sentiment of the council
manifestly ran counter to the one it expressed, as it did not
pronounce deserving of censure the acts of those who had suffered
for the Faith. The priests continued to arouse the zeal of their
misguided parishioners; enthusiasts continued to outrage the
sanctity of the mosques and the dignity of the tribunals, and the
executions went relentlessly on. Recafred, Archbishop of Cordova,
exasperated by the contempt with which the decree of the council
had been received, heartily co-operated with the Moslems in the
punishment of the offenders, now under the ban of both the
government and the Church. Many recalcitrant priests were seized
and thrown into prison. Others eluded with the greatest difficulty the
search of the authorities. Among the latter was St. Eulogius, with
whom, as well as with many of his holy brethren, the merits of
martyrdom seemed most glorious when obtained by the sufferings of
others. These vigorous measures filled the souls of the elect with
terror. A few escaped to the Asturias. A considerable number,
including some who had been loudest in their praise of the saints
and apparently most eager to emulate their example, apostatized.
The so-called persecution, begun under Abd-al-Rahman II. and
continued under Mohammed, lasted eight years. The works of
contemporaneous ecclesiastical writers conclusively establish the
fact that it was provoked by the violence of the Christians
themselves. It is apparent from the same authorities that its effects
and importance were grossly exaggerated. The Memorial of the
Saints, by Eulogius, the last and most eminent of the alleged victims
of Moslem tyranny, contains the names of comparatively few
martyrs. But forty-four are mentioned by the erudite historian Florez,
whose diligent industry has collated the voluminous records bearing
upon the hagiology of that time, as having been executed at
Cordova. Several of these were women, between whom and their
male companions in suffering and glory, the pious chronicler naïvely
declares, “mysterious affinities” existed.
With the decline of the empire, the prevalence of anarchy, and the
ascendency of the Berbers, the condition of the Spanish Christians
became more and more distressing. The suspension of the laws
afforded every facility for their oppression. Their churches were torn
down. Their property was confiscated. The descendants of the
partisans of Ibn-Hafsun maintained a correspondence with the
Castilian enemy. Alfonso of Aragon traversed the Peninsula from the
Ebro to the sea, at the invitation of the Mozarabes of Granada. Ten
thousand of the latter attended him in his retreat. The vengeance
exacted of their treacherous vassals by the Moors of that kingdom
was terrible. The expedition was productive of not less unhappy
results at Cordova. Nearly every church was destroyed, the
Christians were tortured, despoiled of their possessions, and
deported in a body to Africa.
At the beginning of the twelfth century, the misfortunes of the
maltreated sectaries had reached their culmination. The Almohades,
when not dominated by the marabouts, were inclined to be tolerant.
The Arab chronicles which treat of the Moorish principalities do not
mention the subject of persecution, and no Christian records of that
time have been preserved. The Mozarabes of the kingdom of
Granada enjoyed the largest liberty. In Sicily, during the entire period
of Moslem supremacy, martyrdoms were exceedingly rare.
Considering the widely extended apostasy which followed the
Arab conquest, it is remarkable, if viewed only from a worldly stand-
point, that the entire Christian population of the Peninsula did not
become Mohammedan. There is no doubt that those who remained
consistently steadfast in the faith were in a decided minority. No
inconsiderable number of proselytes was recruited from the patrician
class. Among the great body of serfs and slaves, there were few who
were not willing to renounce their religion for the certain enjoyment of
liberty and the flattering prospect of future ease or distinction. The
mass of the tributaries of the province of Seville had early
abandoned the Christian communion, and during the reign of Abd-al-

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The Business of Film: A Practical

Introduction (3rd Edition) Stephen R.

The Business of Film A Practical Introduction 3rd

The Business of Film: A Practical Introduction 2nd

Practical Business Analytics Using R and Python: Solve

Practical Business Analytics Using R and Python 2nd

Statistics for Linguistics with R A Practical

Spreadsheet Modeling and Decision Analysis: A Practical

Chinese Martial Arts Film and the Philosophy of Action

Primary Mathematics 3A Hoerst

This updated third edition introduces readers to the business of film at

Stephen R. Greenwald has served as an executive, financier, consultant,

1 A Brief History of the Film Industry 1

2 A Business Overview of Film 35

4 Movie Financing 105

5 Movie Production 135

6 Movie Distribution 177

7 Movie Marketing 219

8 Film Exhibition, Retail, and Consumption 246

9 Movie Accounting 287

Stephen Greenwald has been professionally involved in the motion picture

have included Bank of America, Credit Lyonnais Bank, Sony Pictures,

filmmakers; and seeks to learn constantly. Ms Landry has conducted

With Additional Content by Michael Kalb

Appendix Legal Forms Courtesy of Garson,

agreements. Rather than accepting Hollywood “standard” clauses, Robert

A Brief History of the

Movie Industry Themes

office, around $2 billion compared to North America,1 an ongoing trend in

Both a Business and an Art Form

recognition as great art, but generally were unprofitable or minor commer-

VII—The Force Awakens), according to Box Office Mojo. Even a so-called

Film Is an Art Form that Is Technologically Driven

Figure 1.1 Major Advances in Movie Industry Technology

Later, as production and distribution costs increased, in part because of

A Brief Business History of Film

The Early Years

The Birth of Distribution

1 Development: an idea transformed into a script, the attachment of key

2 Financing: securing the funds necessary to make the film.

When theater owners began to produce movies in order to keep up with

Thomas Edison’s Monopoly

The Birth of the Studio System

The Marriage of Sight and Sound

The Influence of Capital

be known, enforced a reign of strict self-censorship, so as not to offend the

Funding Research and Development

The Impact of World Events

was enhanced by an influx of European filmmakers fleeing the worsening

The Advent of Television

about the anticompetitive practices of the studios in booking their films

Television Spurs Media Consolidation and Independent

produced, the studio business model of having talent on permanent con-

Figure 1.2 Average Weekly Cinema Attendance by Percentage

The Expansion and Impact of Cable TV

The Introduction and Influence of Home Video

De Laurentiis Entertainment, and Hemdale. These companies financed a

The Restructuring of the Film Studios

Corporate Consolidation and Risk Aversion

primarily, if not exclusively, film companies—now operated as divi-

The Evolution of Film as a Global Business

of motion picture technology in the United States in the 1890s, the

brand of subscription video on demand operated by Disney. While not all