Starting in 1912 with the founding of Universal and Paramount and lasting a little over a century, the movies made by the Big 5 Hollywood studios thoroughly dominated the motion picture industry.
Up to 85 percent of all features released in the United States during this time were produced by these studios. In addition to Universal and Paramount, the Big 5 include Columbia (founded in 1918), Disney and Warner Bros. (both founded in 1923).
Although many tried, most upstart studios that attempted to break out during this time failed. The ones that came later and didn’t fail (Fox, DreamWorks, New Line, Miramax, Focus) were ultimately swallowed up and still exist as “boutique” art-house imprints as subsidiaries or “umbrellas” for the Big 5. United Artists (founded in 1919) and MGM (founded in 1924), both went belly up multiple times. Each is now part of Amazon.
By most estimates, movies released in the summer season (March through the July 4th weekend) account for over half of all annual studio revenues. The “wasteland” (January, February, August, and the remainder of July) consists (mostly) of movies deemed not strong enough for the summer or “award worthy” enough for the fall.
And there is the rub.
Profit or Prestige
As important as summer movies are for the Big 5 financially, the fall season is a major deal from a prestige perspective. The lion’s share of the movies released by the Big 5 in the fall is designed to garner critical praise and awards acclaim. If they also make money, great, but if not, that’s okay as well. If a Big 5 movie gets nominated for a slew of awards yet loses money at the box office, the Big 5 don’t care; it’s all about bragging rights.
The Oscars (bestowed by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences [AMPAS]) were and remain the holy grail of all movie industry accolades. For most of the last century, the Big 5 has reigned supreme, but the times, they are a’ changin’.
To put this in perspective, go back a half century to 1974. The five AMPAS Best Picture nominees in the 47th Oscars were “The Godfather Part II” (which won), “Chinatown,” “The Conversation,” “Lenny,” and “The Towering Inferno.” While I liked “Inferno,” I didn’t think it was Best Picture material, but the others more than deserved the award and are all classics.
The first three were Paramount flicks (two of which were written, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola); “Lenny” was United Artists, and “Inferno” was Fox: three Big 5 nominees and two independents.
Sea Change
Perhaps it’s not a major shift but certainly a sea change. From the mid-1960s through the late 1970s, most if not all Best Picture nominees were from the Big 5, but also part of the “American New Wave” (ANW), with a new generation of filmmakers working during the mid-1960s to 1980s.The box office and awards success of ANW films was due to the unofficial death of the “Golden Age of Hollywood.” After the success of “The Sound of Music” in 1965 and the many failures that soon followed, the Big 5 had no choice but to push and promote these “artsy” movies in order to survive financially and to remain dominant during awards season.
But this was the best of all possible outcomes for the Big 5. All but five of the 13 Best Picture winners from 1967 through 1979 were ANW movies. But by 1980, the ANW had essentially run out of creative steam. It’s worth noting that two of those other five winners (“In the Heat of the Night” and “Patton”) were distributed by United Artists and Fox, respectively.
Nobody knew it at the time but the American film industry was about to unwittingly pivot once again.
Birth of the Blockbuster
Although frequently included in the original ANW group of filmmakers, director Steven Spielberg didn’t share the same outsider mindset of his friends Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Hal Ashby, Peter Bogdanovich, and George Lucas.Early in his career, Spielberg’s sole vision was in making commercially viable movies; he had no interest in crafting art house or “message” films. His mission was in cranking out mainstream movies designed for mass consumption.
In 1975, after five short films, a TV movie, and an iffy feature debut (“Sugarland Express”), Spielberg got the green light from Universal to make the action thriller “Jaws.” With a budget of $9 million, “Jaws” wound up taking in close to $484 million worldwide box office. The lines of patrons around the blocks of theaters waiting to see it led to the phrase “blockbuster.”
As much of a game-changer as “Jaws” was, it proved to be a mere blip compared to what was to come two years later with the release of a movie dubbed “A Space Opera” from Spielberg’s frequent collaborator George Lucas. It would go on to both save, yet ultimately sink Hollywood creativity.
Check in next week for the second half of this essay.
