Recently, a clip of Matt Damon went viral when he explained why movies aren’t as good anymore. Or rather, he explained that the collapse of DVD sales has affected how studios approach green-lighting projects. His thesis is basically that there’s no money to be made post-theatrical release, so studios are less likely to take risks without that safety net.
I think this is correct. Damon obviously has the inside scoop. But on an observable level, we’ve seen the major players in the industry unwilling to risk their yearly budgets on small and mid-budget projects. They’re instead moving funds to blockbusters. For some, this was a successful move. Disney has managed to expand their empire on the profits of Marvel tentpoles. Other attempts, like Universal’s Dark Cinematic Horror Scary Booooo Spectacular Spooky Universe, failed to connect with audiences completely. Also, DC exists.
But I think this prevailing wisdom that “there’s no money in movies anymore” does a disservice to what’s actually going on. Because the argument I’ve seen is that there is no precedent to how the film industry is working currently. That simply isn’t true.
What we’re seeing here is a remaking of the studio system.
Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915) was a decision made by the Supreme Court that, on its most basic terms, decreed that motion pictures were not protected under free speech laws in the USA. Although that decision would later be overturned in the 1950s, it laid the foundation for almost half a century of productions that only could be understood legally as products. This made them vulnerable to extreme censorship under the Hays Code.
Studios moved like production-based corporations, which they legally were. They created and distributed products. But the methods of doing so were considered anti-competitive because they crushed other distribution companies and smaller theatres who sought to exhibit films by both studios and independent producers. Fox, Paramount, MGM and every other major studio either owned theatres, or forced mass bookings of their films to ensure showings for those that were considered risky or likely to have low attendance. Regardless of interest, theatres that booked a block of films in order to get the major blockbusters, were also forced to keep showings up for films that weren’t selling tickets. They were also able to withhold certain money-makers from competitors in order to weaken them further.
By 1948, these practices were banned via the Paramount Decree, by 1952, film was agreed to be protected under the First Amendment. In 1957 there were almost 170 independent film producers in working in Hollywood, almost 100 more than the 70 in 1946. But in the interim, certain precedents had been set, less legal and more cultural.
It’s hard to know what might have happened in a film industry with less censorship and more competition earlier. Yes, you can look to other countries like Britain and Germany, but war and limited markets had their own crippling cultural affects. On one hand, we almost certainly would have seen more nudity, coarse language, and adult themes. The pre-code era was a goldmine for increasingly edgy material. Stars like Norma Shearer and Mae West built their brands off of it.
However, further than that, we likely would have had increasingly nuanced and mature storytelling. Of Human Bondange (1934) told the story of an abusive woman who destroys her own and other lives through her selfishness. Rain (1932) gives us a prostitute who is convinced to serve God, only for the priest pushing her in that direction to rape her and thus force a return to her former way of life. These weren’t trite, airy stories of people learning lessons. Sometimes nobody walked away happy. But in the grand scheme of filmmaking, these were still outliers. But there was still something to be gained from to the censorship laws.
When people bemoan the Hays Code, they also rarely talk about what it wound up supporting, and that’s spectacle. Simple, digestible stories told with flair. Giant productions that are filled with the best effects of the era. Look at the MGM musicals starring Judy Garland, or the grand romance of something like Now, Voyager (1942), or even the exciting Robin Hood films starring Errol Flynn. Because they were products, they had to be something that everyone could enjoy, and for some filmmakers, this challenge lent itself to some of the best films in history.
I feel like this sounds familiar. When I describe the movies of that era, think about the words I use. Simple. Grand. Digestible. Exciting. Taken out of context, I could be describing the latest Spiderman film, or Despicable Me instalment, or even a Jordan Peele movie. Many stories were compromised, but plenty were able to expand into their fullest self. The general public doesn’t always have terrible taste, and when we look back, we have more good than bad art to reflect on.
This, however, might be an illusion.
If you’ve seen that Matt Damon clip, you’ve probably also watched the HBOMax drama unfolding. The rumoured cancellation of all non-scripted content, which is seemingly false (updates obviously pending). The merging to focus on “female focused content” that seems heavily coded to mean reality television. The wiping of a disturbing number of shows, including cult favourites like Genera+ion and many animated series.
When we talk about the studio era, or really any time in film and television history before the rise in home media in the 1970s and 1980s, we’re talking about a fraction of what actually existed. Roughly 75% of silent era cinema has been lost to time. While many films were preserved later to be re-exhibited, there’s dozens of Hollywood pictures through the years following that we will never get to see. Full productions like The Promise (1969), which was Ian McKellen’s film debut, and cuts like the original version of A Star Is Born (1954), are lost to time.
Returning to DVDs, when Damon discusses their worth in the clip, he’s only talking about their financial worth. Home Media came to be a saving grace for films that previously only had re-releases sporadically. It became a way for film to have a much more defined impact on the public, in a different and more permanent way that the theatrical experiences. Studios first returned their catalogues back to theatres, then sold distribution rights to television, then hawked them on home media. But when you bought the VHS of a movie, it was yours.
Streaming was, in theory, a lateral move from other home media. iTunes hadn’t been any more or less an ownership than DVDs, despite the lack of bonus content. Netflix acted like a cheaper cable service. Both, in theory, provided a secondary market for films that should continue to allow small and mid-tier productions to have that support, and in many ways, they do. If you still had access to everything, rental rather than ownership seemed like a no-brainer for an increasingly poor population. But we’re seeing the downside to this.
You’re being charged for a service, not a product. It’s a collection of material, but you have no say in what that material is, only in whether you’re going in on it or not. Consumer demand obviously drives what is platformed to an extent, but if demand is weighed to be less than a tax cut, then a film may never see the light of day. Look at the Batgirl film that’s currently languishing. Or the need to edit films to match branding, like the incident where Disney covered the ass of the female lead in Splash. DVDs supported the production specific, but streaming supports the company.
These are expensive choices for companies to make $15 a month off of a few million people globally. We’re constantly hearing rumours and leaks they’re losing money. Because streaming is not actually profitable, but it is a way to completely control the market.
Laws settled in the 1940s prevent studios from owning the means of distribution and exhibition, but streaming isn’t included in that. What we’re seeing isn’t just films being “pushed onto streaming”, it’s creating a pipeline of exclusive rights, ownership and exhibition that looks to crush whatever competition exists in Hollywood. Companies like Disney, Paramount and HBO are trading off on their perceived quality to create consumer loyalty. Much like how the studio system squashed independent producers and distributors in the past, the current system is doing so now.
So yes, we’re seeing the studio system rise again and smaller productions are increasingly rare from the mainstream studios. This isn’t even touching upon the effect of digital filmmaking on the quality of what small productions there are now. But what is the end of this rabbit hole?
A few weeks prior to this being published, it was the 50th anniversary of Bob Fosse’s 1972 film adaptation of Cabaret. Obviously, this is a production brimming of NAMES. The best nepotism baby, Liza Minelli, in her debut and star making performance as Sally Bowles. Michael York giving a touching performance as the linguist Brian Roberts. Joel Grey as the Master of Ceremonies, brilliantly comedic with an air of mischief and a hint of danger. Every number brilliantly choreographed and filmed with care by the legend Fosse himself.
It wasn’t made within the studio system, but it couldn’t exist without it.
The production company that footed the bill, Allied Artists, was a holdover from the studio days. Minelli’s Hollywood heritage was both matrilineal and patrilineal, with her father directing some of MGM’s biggest hits of the 1950s. The filmmaking of the 1970s was essentially feasted upon the carcass of the studio system. The morals and standards of that era were dead, with pornography running rampant and everyone unsure how to make hits in a world where they had to pay cast and crew fairly. But from the ashes rose a new Hollywood, a new set of artists, and my favourite musical of all time.
But that was all somewhat of an illusion. Not Cabaret, that’s still great. But the freedom. There was a time when vertical integration and studio ownership of production, distribution and exhibition was banned, but that essentially died under Ronald Reagan. The laxity at which these laws were applied when one of the studio system’s own sat in the White House allowed that same corruption to fester in Hollywood. The decrees that had halted these practices were decided to have “outlived their usefulness”. They were formally terminated in November of 2019, meaning that studios not only can strong arm theatres into blind bidding on films months and years in advance, but can actually own those theatres again.
What happened was a result of the culture of filmmaking under the studio system, and it remains today. It couldn’t revert everything back, everyone essentially existed as free agents for studios to pull at need rather than retain on salary, but the bones were there. And we’re seeing those salaries positions return in small ways. Deals for a certain number of films and shows are being signed by major creators and rising actors, locking them into relationships with studios and platforms. Everyone wants a monopoly.
For all this, you probably want a solution. Some declaration that this will all be ok, and filmmakers will return to their freedom. But I more want to emphasis just how normal this situation is. We’ve lived through one of the only times when everything was being preserved, studios were pretending to be fair and equitable. But not everything can survive, particularly under capitalism, and not when they’re meant to be throwaway products. That doesn’t mean it’s all going to disappear. Creatives made great art before, they’re making great art now, and they’ll make great art again. What is loved is remembered and preserved.
And it will all collapse. Eventually the people rise in defend of their freedoms, and that includes art. Laws will be passed, studios will shrink, collapse, reform, and continue to produce films and television. Then they’ll grow again. Marvel movies being mediocre isn’t the end of the world, and all you can do is see what is good when it is available. Buy what you can, try and get copies of what you can’t get legally. History will preserve what it can, but what it can’t fades regardless of your worry.
And fuck Ronald Reagan.
Select bibliography
Paramount Revisited: The Resurgence of Vertical Integration in the Motion Picture Industry
Federal Court Terminates Paramount Consent Decrees
What the End of the Paramount Decree Could Mean for the Future of Moviegoing
Forbidden Hollywood: When Sin Ruled Movies - Mark A Vieira
Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood - William J Mann