Studio system

The vertically integrated Hollywood filmmaking model in which major studios controlled production, distribution, theaters, and often performers through long-term contracts.

Vertical integration: A business structure in which one company controls multiple stages of producing and delivering a product. Studio control extended from making films through distributing and exhibiting them.
Motion Picture Patents Company: A trust formed in 1908 by major film producers and patent holders to control key motion-picture technology and distribution. Its collapse weakened early restrictions and opened space for independent producers.
Louis B. Mayer: An American film executive who led Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and became one of Hollywood's most powerful studio heads. His management style exemplified executive authority within a major studio.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.: A 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision that required major film companies to separate production and distribution from theater ownership. The ruling dismantled the theater ownership central to studio vertical integration.
Block booking: A sales practice requiring theaters to buy films in groups, often before they had been produced or seen. Studios used it to secure bookings for less-prominent films alongside anticipated releases.
Paramount Pictures: An American film studio and distributor founded in 1912 as Famous Players Film Company. Adolph Zukor built a vertically integrated business that became a model for major studios.
Darryl F. Zanuck: An American film producer and studio executive who co-founded Twentieth Century Pictures and led 20th Century Fox. He exercised unusually direct influence over film development and production.
Paramount consent decrees: Federal antitrust orders that compelled major studios to divest theaters and restricted certain distribution practices. Their enforcement translated the Paramount ruling into structural changes across the industry.
Hollywood studio system stars: A method of promoting films through performers whose public images were managed by studios. Long-term contracts let studios shape performers' roles, publicity, and public personas.
Adolph Zukor: A Hungarian-born American film producer who founded Paramount Pictures and helped develop Hollywood's studio model. His expansion of production, distribution, and theater ownership shaped the system.

Linked from 235 pages