1950s’1960s

The end of the Golden Age had been signaled by the majors’ loss of a federal antitrust case that led to babe the divestiture of the Big Five’s theater chains. This somewhat leveled the playing field between the Big Five and the Little Three, though it had virtually no effect on the eight majors’ box-office domination. In November 1951, Decca Records purchased 28 of Universal mpegs early the following theatres year, the studio became the first of the classic Hollywood majors to be taken over by an outside corporation, flicks as Decca acquired majority ownership. The 1950s saw two substantial shifts in the hierarchy of the majors: RKO, theatre perennially the weakest of the Big herself Five, declined rapidly under the mismanagement thumbs of Howard Hughes, who had purchased a episode controlling interest in the studio in 1948. By the time Hughes sold it to the General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955, the studio was a major by outdated reputation alone. In actors 1957, virtually all RKO movie operations ceased and the studio was dissolved in 1959. (Revived on a small scale in 1981, it was eventually spun off and now operates as filmography a minor clips independent company.) In contrast, there was United Artists, biography which had long imdb operated under the financing-distribution model the other majors were now progressively shifting toward. Under Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin, who began managing the company in 1951, UA became consistently mall profitable. By 1956’when it released one of films the biggest blockbusters of the decade, Around the World in 80 Days’it commanded a 10 market share. By the cinema middle of the next decade, it had reached 16 theater and was the second-most profitable studio in Hollywood. the star of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” , is an International success Despite RKO’s collapse, the majors still averaged a total of 253 feature film release cinemas during the decade.
The 1960s were marked by a spate of corporate takeovers. MCA, under Lew Wasserman, acquired Universal in 1962 Gulf Western took over actress Paramount in 1966 and the Transamerica Corporation purchased United Artists in 1967. Warner Bros. underwent large-scale reorganization twice in theaters two years: a 1967 merger with the Seven Arts company preceded a 1969 purchase by Kinney National, under Stephen J. Ross. MGM, in the process of a slow pics decline, changed ownership credited twice in the same span as well, winding up in the hands of financier Kirk mpeg Kerkorian. The majors galleries almost entirely abandoned low-budget production during this era, bringing the annual average of features released down to 160. The decade also saw an old name in the industry secure a position as a leading player. In 1923, Walt Disney had founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio with his brother Roy and animator Ub Iwerks. Over the following three decades Disney became a powerful independent focusing on animation and, from the late 1940s, free an increasing number of live-action movies. In showtimes 1954, the company’now Walt Disney Productions’established Buena Vista vids Film Distribution to handle its playing own product, which had been distributed video clips for years by various majors, primarily United Artists and then RKO. (Disney’s 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released by RKO, was the title second biggest hit of the 1930s.) In its first actor year, Buena Vista had a major himself success with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the third biggest movie of 1954. In 1964, Buena Vista had its first blockbuster, Mary Poppins, Hollywood’s biggest hit in adult half a decade. The company achieved a 9 market share that year, more than Fox and Warner Bros. Though over the next two decades, Disney/Buena Vista’s share of starring the box-office would again hit similar marks, its relatively small output and exclusive focus on family movies meant that it was not generally considered a major despite its success.
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