2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Hollywood film companies today are recognized leaders in the world cinema market. This is an undeniable fact that does not require proof. The most successful industries in this area on planet Earth are concentrated in one place. And this is Hollywood. In this article, read about his most famous and profitable companies, as well as the success story of American cinema, which was founded by haberdashers, ordinary workers and farmers.
At the origins of cinema
Few people today would believe it, but a century and a half ago, Hollywood was a real agricultural paradise. The places where the Hollywood companies are located today were occupied by endless pastures and fertile fields, which attracted a large number of farmers.
The name "Hollywood" this area received thanks to a couple of newlyweds Whitley, who boughthere is a plot of several tens of hectares. So they named him. The result was a brand that today is directly associated with the film industry around the world. True, then the filming of films was still far away, since a real war was going on. Patent war.
The fact is that the American entrepreneur and inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison, became the owner of the film patent before the Lumiere brothers. At the same time, no one in the world tried to take into account that this was the author's invention, which caused Edison's righteous anger. In response, he launched a real patent war, starting to bombard every film studio he could find with new lawsuits, calling them to account.
Movie producers were already fairly bled dry by constant litigation with the inventor. Therefore, in 1909, they decided to unite in order to buy a license from Edison to produce film. 9 companies took this step. The new owners of the right to produce motion picture film came together under the name of the Film Patents Company. It included the following studios: Biograph, Edison, Zelig, Waitagraf, Lubin, Esseney, Pate, Kalom and Méliès. As you can see, not a single name familiar to us today. In doing so, they secured a ban on the issuance of additional licenses for the production of film. This meant that the Film Patents Company became a kind of monopolist, concentrating in its hands the entire productionfilm market.
Struggle for hire
At the next stage, the struggle for rental began. The General Film Company succeeded here, and by 1910 had acquired about 60 percent of all movie theaters in America.
Many were against such arbitrariness. The rebellious film producers called themselves independent, refusing to accept the monopoly of the Film Patents Company. They began to actively acquire foreign films for display in the United States, created their own studios, and also made films away from Los Angeles and New York. One of these places became the hills and fields on which Hollywood cinema was born. What is the oldest film studio of all independent companies? This is Universal Studios. It still exists.
"Universal" cinema
Today the logo of this company is known to any movie fan. This is a globe around which, like the rings of the planet Saturn, the inscription Universal revolves, which means "universal" in Russian.
Its founder is a simple haberdashery store manager Carl Lemme, who worked in Wisconsin. His fate was turned upside down when he once went on a business trip to Chicago, where he decided to go to the cinema. As a businessman, he was interested in how distributors recoup their costs, because movie tickets at that time cost very little. Lemme visited one of the cheap cinemas, which was even called by the special term nickelodeon, which literally meanttheater for five cents. At the same time, the total amount of daily revenue pleasantly surprised him. So much so that he decided to leave the haberdashery business and go into film production.
Own production
In 1909, when the so-called patent war was in full swing, Lemme was one of the first to realize that it was unprofitable to buy films for hire. It is much smarter and more productive to start making them yourself. Since 1915, Universal has been based in Hollywood, as it was much cheaper to work there.
It's interesting that at first things didn't work out so well. In order to earn enough money, they even had to arrange tours for tourists to film sets, which became a significant part of the total income of this Hollywood film company. You had to pay 25 cents for the tour.
Lemme was the first in the world to start signing actors' real names in the credits. It is believed that thanks to him, a cult of movie stars was formed in Hollywood. A distinctive feature of Universal was the release of films in the horror genre. They became the founder of this genre. Lemme's Film Factory is still one of the top film companies in Hollywood today.
Universal's most famous films
The company has produced many real hits, many of which have been awarded prestigious film awards, including Oscar statuettes.
It was at this film studio that an outstanding American actor made a name for himself, famous for his ability tounrecognizable to change their appearance. With grotesque make-up, he amazed the audience in the horror films of the 20s "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "The Phantom of the Opera". The studio itself was then even called the "House of Horrors", so much it concentrated on this particular genre. Frankenstein and Dracula, released in 1931, were some of the most profitable films of that period.
In the 1940s, Alfred Hitchcock, master of the psychological thriller, collaborated with the film studio, directing the films Shadow of a Doubt and Saboteur. It was at the Universal film studio that one of the most famous American cartoon characters appeared - woodpecker Woody Woodpecker.
Among the most famous films of the last decades are "Back to the Future", "Jurassic Park", "Jaws", "Fast and the Furious".
Paramount
Another well-known Hollywood film company is Paramount, founded by Adolph Zukor. It all started with the fact that he simply wanted to help his cousin Max Goldstein, who ran a small chain of cinemas. Things weren't going very well for him. Then Zukor began to help a relative, and soon plunged into this business. He created the Famous Players Film Company in 1912.
In the same year, a company called Lasky Feature Play Company was founded by producer Jesse Lasky. In essence, they are very similar. Both did not intend to make films for the working class, seeking to create products only for we althy viewers. It is noteworthy thatthe companies did not compete with each other, but joined forces, starting to sell products under the Paramount brand. And so the studio was created, which entered the list of Hollywood film companies that gained fame and popularity.
Fox Film Corporation
In 1915, the owner of the cinema network, William Fox, founded his company. He merged his rental company with Greater New York Film Rental. This is how this famous film studio appeared.
Fox was one of the most successful producers in the early days of Hollywood cinema. However, his lust for profit killed him. After the death of MGM owner Markus Lov, he decided to buy a share of the business from his family. However, he did not include in the deal another head of the studio, Louis Mayer, who, in retaliation for this, announced Fox's intention to the authorities. With a profit check, the antitrust police officers who took the well-known producer into custody.
Fleeing from ruin, I had to urgently deal with the change of leadership. Sidney Kent became the new owner of Fox Film Corporation. He decided to merge with Twentieth Century Pictures, which was run by Joseph Shenk and Darryl Zanuck. The result was the founding of the film studio known today as 20th Century Fox.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Association
Today this company is one of the six largest American film studios. It was founded after a merger in 1935. Shenk became its first president. One of the first companies in the world to announce the transition to widescreen technology. ithappened in the early 1950s.
In the 70s, 20th Century Fox was the leader in the blockbuster market. In particular, it was this studio that financed the legendary Star Wars films by George Lucas.
Among other popular franchises of the company, it is worth remembering "X-Men", "Avatar", "Die Hard", "Alien", "Predator", "Home Alone", "The X-Files", "Family Guy", "The Simpsons" ".
Warner Brothers
The world-renowned Warner Bros. Pictures was founded by four brothers named Sam, Albert, Harry and Jack. Their path in the film industry began in 1903 showing films to workers in Pennsylvania. Little by little, they began to save money to expand their business. As a result, they managed to acquire their own cinema. Shortly thereafter, they founded their own film distribution company. When it became clear after a decade and a half that the business needed to expand, the brothers moved on to film production.
Their first-ever sound film was a resounding success. The 1927 painting was called The Jazz Singer. This event was a real breakthrough for the company, immediately pushing it into the industry leaders.
Columbia Pictures
This name of the Hollywood film company is known to almost everyone. The studio was founded in 1919 by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn, with whom Joe Brandt initially collaborated. However, the latter could not stand the constant quarrels and disputes between the brothers, eventually selling his share in the business to one of them.
According to another version, Brandt could not stand the bullying, because of all the film studios, CBC Film Sales Corporation, as Columbia Pictures was originally called, had the smallest budget. Because of this, at first it was necessary to shoot exclusively low-grade action films. They even have a reputation for failure. To get rid of it, they renamed the studio Columbia Pictures. After the rebranding, the studio really took off.
During its history, the company has gone through hard times more than once, being on the verge of bankruptcy. As a result, the controlling stake was first sold to Coca-Cola, and now its official owner is Sony.
MGM
Under this abbreviation, the world knows another legendary film company, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Its founder, Louis Mayer, began by purchasing a used movie theater in 1907. Initially, the institution had a bad reputation, and in order to urgently change its reputation, the first after the renovation it showed a film with a religious theme.
The audience was amazed by such a drastic change, they began to go to the cinema on an ongoing basis. Mayer's resourcefulness and entrepreneurial spirit soon made him rich, and in 1918 he opened his own studio. However, it was soon bought out by the owner of a large cinema chain, Markus Lov. He carried out the merger, as a result of which Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed.
Mayer was unhappy with the deal,trying to secure his position in the firm. To do this, he appointed 25-year-old Irving Thalberg as head of the production department. The youngster's aggressive leadership forced one of Goldwyn's named partners to quit. Mayer retained his position as general manager, making the studio Hollywood's largest feature-length motion picture studio.
It was Mayer who came up with the idea of founding the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and awarding the Oscar. The first award ceremony took place in 1929.
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