Industry brief: Movies 2 Part 1 3 4 5 6
The studio oligopoly
Basically, the top eight Hollywood studios that control around 98% of the US film business, and the top five control around 80%. All the real independents together have an inconsiderable share of the market, and most of them have to work with or through a major studio to get national release.
Of course, oligopoly in the movie industry is nothing new. Up until the 1950s, most of the current motion picture companies were parts of then current eight-company "studio system" oligopoly, though relative power has changed and some of the names have changed. In fact you can argue in some sense that the current oligopoly is less powerful, because in the 1948 Supreme Court "Paramount Decision": which ruled against film industry vertical integration and forced studios to divest themselves of their theaters. The terms have changed somewhat (owning theaters is not all that tempting a risk for most studios, in any case), but the oligopoly is still pervasive.
Most of the major studios are now divisions of gigantic international media empires. Some of them, like Universal studios, have been bought and sold several times. DreamWorks and MGM/UA are exceptions. DreamWorks's independence is guaranteed by the presence of Steven Spielberg, who can call his own shots. (It also bucking to become a player is other areas, such as music and TV.) MGM/UA is made up from the slowly recovering remnants of two venerable studios that were sucked dry by venture capitalists. It is currently bidding for Vivendi's Universal Studios, but its chance of winning the bidding is currently slim.
Independents like Miramax and New Line have been bought out the conglomerates. Should any new studio have some real success, it will be more than likely swallowed up as well. One of the most remarkable anomalies of the 2002 seasons was the success of little IFC's "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which ended up as the number five box office attraction of the year, and undoubtedly the most profitable. But such breakouts are quite rare. Most "independent" successes like Miramax's Chicago (#10 in 2002) are safely owned or distributed by the big studios.
Below are players by rank year 2003 (January through July), as reported by industry watcher Box Office Mojo. In the first seven months of 2003, total US box office has amounted to $5.4 billion in sales, a somewhat ahead of last year.
| Company |
Studios |
% share of market |
# of releases |
| Disney |
Buena Vista, Miramax, Dimension, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures |
25 |
23 |
| AOL-Time-Warner |
Warner Brothers, New Line |
19 |
17 |
| Sony |
Sony, Columbia, Screen Gems |
13 |
11 |
| Vivendi |
Universal, Focus |
13 |
13 |
| News Corp. |
2oth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight |
12 |
16 |
| Viacom |
Paramount |
8 |
6 |
| DreamWorks |
DreamWorks |
5 |
4 |
| MGM/UA |
MGM, United Artists, Orion Pictures |
4 |
8 |
Less than! 1%: Lions Gate, IFC Films, IMAX
The relative rank of the top companies varies from year to year, often depending on one or two blockbusters. Note that these percentages aren't absolute, in that a number of releases are now joint ventures between two studios or more. For example, while Fox is the studio with release credit for Titanic, in fact, it was a joint venture with Viacom.
Basically, all the major studies offer a new theatrical release every two to three weeks. The films that they deem major get the royal treatment in terms of marketing and distribution. The others get the leavings. Disney and Time Warner issue more films because of their "independent" subsidiaries, which specialize in smaller, prestige films.
While the movie-making industry has a looser oligopoly concentration than many others at present, it is remarkable how similar the studios all are. Executives, stars, writers, and directors jump from one studio to another. As we've noted above, the studios sometimes join in backing movies. They all face exactly the same task -- getting their films on the shelves and then pulling in the audiences.
It's no surprise that the people who run the studios share exactly the same culture and the same view of the world. Religious conservatives have been howling about this for years. But it's not a Jewish or gay conspiracy. It's just what happens in any oligopoly over time. It is true that you could reshuffle the management and the scheduled releases of virtually all the major studios and no one would ever notice. Once unique entities like New Line and Miramax are looking more and more like studios hat have absorbed them. And all studios (except DreamWorks) answer to distant CFOs and stockholders, who don't care about any ideology except profit.
7:41:44 PM 
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