In the very first chapter of The big picture, Edward Jay Epstein summarizes in 20 pages the changes in business models that the American studios experienced. Below I tried to visually explain the differences between the two Hollywoods, the old and the new.
In 1947, he explains, 3 major factors pushed the movie industry to drastically change:
- the anti-communist campaign that called to report any alleged communist to the authorities
- the anti trust trials that forced the studios to sell their theatres and therefore lose control of the whole value chain
- the emergence of a new technology and an alternative to the movie theatres: the television
