However, the major studios accounted for 80 per-
cent of that gross income, a percentage that would
be even greater if the grosses of their smaller, inde-
pendent production units were included. Not
reflected in Table 11.6, but nonetheless very signifi-
cant, is the fact that, in 2006, females were the top
business or creative executives at five of these
seven studios, burying forever the idea that Holly-
wood is a man’s world.
Dominating the market worldwide, the major
studios continue to define the nature of movie pro-
duction in the United States. When one of these
smaller studios has a larger corporate owner, the
parent firm is usually the distributor. In addition,
countless independent producers must distribute
their movies through the “big six” studios if they
want the largest possible audience and the maxi-
mum profits on their investments.^22
To get a better sense of how this arrangement
works today, consider Table 11.7, which shows how
the nine Oscar nominees for Best Picture of 2011
were produced and released. All five were independ-
ent productions involving multiple coproduction
deals. As for distribution, only Tony Gilroy’s Michael
Claytonwas distributed by a major studio; Paul
Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Bloodwas distrib-
uted by the “prestige” division of Paramount; and
the other three were distributed by large independ-
ent production companies.
Today the American film industry is healthy
but changing, as the following brief discussion
shows.^23 Although movie theater attendance dropped
about 10 percent between 2004 and 2005, rentals
and sales of videotapes and DVDs during that
period increased. (On average, U.S. residents have
attended at least five movies per year between 2000
and 2004.) The industry employed close to 200,000
people in production and related services alone,
with another 141,000 people employed in the the-
aters and rental stores.
As for the ratings, there has been a distinct shift in
the past few years toward a more lenient approach,
provoking children’s advocates and critics of the
rating system to condemn the increase of violent
and sexually explicit content in movies rated PG or
PG-13. The MPAA ratings of the top five grossing
movies of 2011 were as follows:- David Yates’s Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows, Part 2: rated PG-13 for some
sequences of intense action violence and
frightening images. - Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the
Moon: rated PG-13 for intense prolonged
sequences of sci-fi action violence, mayhem
and destruction, and for language, some
sexuality and innuendo.
514 CHAPTER 11FILMMAKING TECHNOLOGIES AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
Source: Material adapted and expanded from “Bulls & Bears,” Film Comment42, no. 2 (March/April 2006). Updated with
data from 2010.
TABLE 11.6 (continued)TLA Releasing
Koch Lorber Films
First Run FeaturesPercentage of total grosses
Major studios 80%
Independent producers 20%(^22) Compaine and Gomery, Who Owns the Media?, p. 373.
(^23) This discussion is based on 2004 statistics supplied by the
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA); Table 11.6 is
based on 2010 data.