MSP Film Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit membership-based organization with a rich 50-year history of exhibiting the very best of contemporary and classic independent, local, national and international cinema to Minnesota audiences. We present daily screenings, regular film series and events, and our centerpiece, the annual Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, informing our audiences about the culture, histories, cutting-edge news and the art of filmmaking from around the world.
As we transition into this exciting new cinematic era, MSP Film encourages the entire film loving community to help ensure a vibrant future for cinematic arts in Minnesota by donating, becoming members, or renewing memberships. These will become all the more valuable in 2022!
The MSP Film Society is a dynamic 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to fostering a knowledgeable and vibrant appreciation of the art of film and its power to inform and transform individuals and communities. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Major film studios are production and distribution companies that release a substantial number of films annually and consistently command a significant share of box office revenue in a given market. In the American and international markets, the major film studios, often known simply as the majors or the Big Five studios, are commonly regarded as the five diversified media conglomerates whose various film production and distribution subsidiaries collectively command approximately 80 to 85% of U.S. box office revenue.[1][2][3][4] The term may also be applied more specifically to the primary motion picture business subsidiary of each respective conglomerate.[2]
The current "Big Five" majors (Universal, Paramount, WB, Disney, and Sony) all originate with film studios that were active during Hollywood's "Golden Age". Three of these were among that original era's "Eight Majors", being that era's original "Big Five" plus its "Little Three", collectively the eight film studios that controlled as much as 96% of the market during the 1930s and 1940s.
Universal Pictures was, during that early era, considered one of "Little Three", along with United Artists and Columbia Pictures, but became quickly a part of the "Big Five" in the 1930s. Meanwhile, United Artists began as a distribution company for several independent producers and later began producing its own films, and was eventually acquired by MGM in 1981. Columbia Pictures eventually merged in 1987 with Tri-Star Pictures to form Columbia Pictures Entertainment.
Outside of the Big Five, there are several smaller U.S. production and distribution companies, known as independents or "indies". The leading independent producer/distributors such as Lionsgate Films, Apple Studios, Netflix, Inc., (the aforementioned Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) (now owned by Amazon), A24, and STX Entertainment are sometimes referred to as "mini-majors". From 1998 through 2005, during a portion of the Big Six period, DreamWorks SKG commanded a large enough market share to arguably qualify it as a seventh major. In 2006, DreamWorks was acquired by Viacom, Paramount's then-corporate parent (Viacom, after other mergers and acquisitions and rebrandings, included its movie studio's well known name when the parent company rebranded as Paramount Global in 2022). In late 2008, DreamWorks once again became an independent production company; its films were distributed by Disney's Touchstone Pictures until 2016, at which point distribution switched to Universal.
"Instant major" is a 1960s coined term for a film company that seemingly overnight had approached the status of major"[62]In 1967, three "instant major" studios popped up, two of which were partnered with a television network theatrical film unit with most lasting until 1973:
In 1923, Walt Disney had founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio and The Disney Brothers Features Company with his brother Roy and animator Ub Iwerks. Renamed as Walt Disney Productions, Disney became a powerful independent over the next three decades focusing on animation with its shorts and films being distributed over the years by various majors; primarily Leslie B. Mace, Winkler Pictures, Universal Pictures, Celebrity Productions, Cinephone, Columbia Pictures, United Artists, United Artists Pictures and finally RKO. In its first year in 1928, Celebrity Productions and Cinephone had released its first blockbuster Steamboat Willie. In the decades that followed, Disney and its associated distributors were able to achieve occasional successes, but its relatively small output and exclusive focus on G-rated films meant that it was not generally considered to be one of the majors.
On October 6, 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, and a whole new era began, with "pictures that talked", bringing the studio to the forefront of the film industry. The Jazz Singer played to standing-room-only crowds throughout the country and earned a special Academy Award for Technical Achievement.[67] Fox, in the forefront of sound film technology along with Warner Bros., was also acquiring a sizable circuit of movie theaters to exhibit its product.[citation needed] The development of sound films like The Jazz Singer near the end of the Roaring Twenties resulted in a massive rush of Americans to movie theaters to watch the astonishing new "talkies".[6] At the peak of the fad, every person in the United States over the age of six was watching a motion picture in a theater at least once a week.[6] The box office revenue from the first sound films is what enabled the Hollywood majors to achieve their lasting domination of the global film industry.[6]
The early 1970s were difficult years for all the classic majors. Movie attendance, which had been declining steadily since the end of the Golden Age, hit an all-time low by 1971. In 1973, MGM president James T. Aubrey drastically downsized the studio, slashing its production schedule and eliminating its distribution arm (UA would distribute the studio's films for the remainder of the decade). From fifteen releases in 1973, the next year MGM was down to five; its average for the rest of the 1970s would be even lower.[72] Like RKO in its last days under Hughes, MGM remained a major in terms of brand reputation, but little more. Disney by contrast began to ascend towards major status through a resurgence in its animated movies, beginning with The Rescuers (1977), and the studio began to enter the adult market with The Black Hole (1979), its first non-G rated film.
The two emerging contenders were both newly formed companies. In 1978, Krim, Benjamin, and three other studio executives departed UA to found Orion Pictures as a joint venture with Warner Bros. It was announced optimistically as the "first major new film company in 50 years".[74] Tri-Star Pictures was created in 1982 as a joint venture of future corporate sibling Columbia Pictures (at that time acquired by the Coca-Cola Company), HBO (then owned by Warner Bros. Discovery's predecessor Time Inc.), and CBS. In 1985, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation acquired 20th Century-Fox (thus dropping that name's hyphen), the last of both the classic Hollywood majors to be taken over by an outside corporation and five relatively healthy Golden Age majors to remain independent throughout that era and after until its eventual sale to Disney in 2019 brought back the Big Five for the first time since then.
More developments took place among the majors' subsidiaries. The very successful animation production house Pixar, whose films were distributed by Buena Vista, was acquired by Disney also in 2006. In 2008, New Line Cinema lost its independent status within Time Warner and became a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Time Warner also announced that it would be shutting down its two specialty units, Warner Independent and Picturehouse.[78] Also in 2008, Paramount Vantage's production, marketing, and distribution departments were folded into the parent studio,[79] though it retained the brand for release purposes.[80][81] Universal sold off its genre specialty division, Rogue Pictures, to Relativity Media in 2009.[82]
On December 14, 2017, The Walt Disney Company (the parent company of major film studio Walt Disney Studios) announced its intent to acquire key assets of 21st Century Fox (including fellow major film studio 20th Century Fox, along with Fox Searchlight Pictures and Blue Sky Studios).[85][86] After beating out Comcast in a bidding war for Fox, both Disney and Fox shareholders approved the deal on July 27, 2018, and closed on March 20, 2019.[87][88] As a result,[85] the number of major film studios was reduced to five, a number that has not been since the Golden Age of Hollywood,[89] thereby ending the era of the "Big Six" studios and Fox's 83-year reign as a member of that elite group.[89]
On August 13, 2019, Paramount Pictures parent, Viacom, announced its reunion with CBS Corporation, and the combined company would be called ViacomCBS, renamed Paramount also in 2022. The two companies previously merged in 2000 but split in 2005. The deal was completed on December 4, 2019.[91][92] Meanwhile, CBS Corporation's mini-major film studio, CBS Films was folded into CBS Entertainment Group after releasing its 2019 film slate, switching its focus to creating original film content for CBS All Access.[93]
The studios were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic with some cinema chains closing, precipitating box office flops (like Disney's Onward or Sony's Bloodshot). Several films were delayed (Universal and MGM's No Time to Die or Paramount's A Quiet Place Part II and even Disney's Black Widow and Mulan) and others were launched to the digital market (like Universal's The Invisible Man and Trolls World Tour and Warner Bros.' Birds of Prey, Scoob and Wonder Woman 1984).[96]
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