What Hollywood era did the studios make the most money (adjusted)?

[grey ghost]

Is there any way to figure this out?

 

Any articles or forum knowledge about this subject?

[DAR]

I don't know would we say the Golden Age?  

[TalismanRing]

1 hour ago, DAR said:

I don't know would we say the Golden Age?  

 

That would be my guess.  They owned the movie theaters, they had actors under exclusive 7 year (+ before De Havilland) contracts and TV wasn't around (until the tail end) let alone home video.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2017 by TalismanRing

[Dementeleus]

They didn't have to pay residuals either.

[DMan7]

The way its starting to sound in here, studios might as well stop making movies altogether now.

[Walt Disney]

We know that movie attendance was highest in the 1930s and 1940s. Therefore, one of those 2 decades is the answer.

 

Throughout the decades after the 1940's, more and more attendance has been concentrated into fewer and fewer movies. So the modern blockbusters make more money on average than the older blockbusters adjusted for inflation. However, on average, the higher attendance overall would lead to more money adjusted for inflation.

 

The 1930s started out with good attendance, but then the Great Depression began to hurt the box office. However, attendance picked up after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs success in 1937. The 1940s started out great, continuing the trend started in the late 1930's. However, the box office declined a lot in the few later years of World War 2. Then, attendance rose again as the war ended, with 1946 having the best year attendance wise in box office history. Then, the box office started to slowly decline.

 

If I had to guess, I would say the 1940s beats the 1930s. Then, would come the 1970s because of the invention of the multiplex, releasing films on Fridays instead of mid-week, wide releases and the invention of the modern blockbuster.

[grey ghost]

9 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

They didn't have to pay residuals either.

 

But merchandising, home video, tv rights, overseas revenue, etc were nowhere as big as they are today.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2017 by grey ghost

[Barnack]

1 hour ago, TalismanRing said:

 

That would be my guess.  They owned the movie theaters, they had actors under exclusive 7 year (+ before De Havilland) contracts and TV wasn't around (until the tail end) let alone home video.

 

 

But TV and Home video are mostly product from the studios.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Barnack

[Barnack]

4 hours ago, Walt Disney said:

We know that movie attendance was highest in the 1930s and 1940s. Therefore, one of those 2 decades is the answer.

 

Not that simple imo, studio didn't had TV product, not has much merchandising, no video game franchise, no dvds, not has much oversea revenue.

 

Many says that the small windows of around 2002 to 2008 or so, when the DVD craze was at is peak was the most profitable time for the movie segment of studios, that was a time when they were making 90 to 110 million net budget comedy + gross points that would be made at 40m or less now and still be seen as a risk.

 

Looking only at the domestic box office when for a while a studio revenues pie was looking like this

 

 

Would be extremely misleading.

 

At least we know it is not the 60 or 70, when studio were closing on one big flop and had to take huge risk, if it is not that dvd bubble it would be at some point at the golden age.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Barnack

[grey ghost]

Can we compare the box office revenue during the peak of the classic era vs the new Hollywood era vs modern Hollywood?

 

And then add rough estimates of how much merchandising, home video, tv rights, etc are worth during those later peaks?

Edited July 3, 2017 by grey ghost

[Barnack]

5 minutes ago, grey ghost said:

Can we compare the box office revenue during the peak of the classic era vs the new Hollywood era vs modern Hollywood?

 

And then add rough estimates of how much merchandising, home video, tv rights, etc are worth during those later peaks?

 

Would be hard, I think during a certain era marketing was made locally by theaters, not a movie distributor, and cost also did change a bit, looking at actual hold annual report of some studio (if some ever were public company back in the day) to see actual profit and adjust those for inflation would pretty much the only "clean" way to goes.

[Dementeleus]

Merchandising feels like a separate entity to me.

[TalismanRing]

10 minutes ago, Barnack said:

But TV and Home video are mostly product from the studios.

 

Home video yes though a bit of the trade off is that it cut into the theatrical window where movies could play for years and get re-releases that made as much or money and they owned the theaters.

 

The breaking of the monopoly where studios had to sell their theater chains and the advent of TV with original programming was the biggest blow to studios.   It's no coincidence that TV 's appearance and popularity corresponds to the enormous sharp downturn in attendance (dropping from the high of 4.7b a year) from which it has never recovered even as the population nearly tripled from the 1930s and double from the 1950s until today.

 

 

 

 

[The Panda]

Box Office wise it'd be since around Avatar, with the explosion of foreign markets.

[grey ghost]

4 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

Merchandising feels like a separate entity to me.

 

Don't studios consider merchandising potential before they greenlight a film?

[Dementeleus]

Just now, grey ghost said:

 

Don't studios consider merchandising potential before they greenlight a film?

 

Probably depends on the film. It just feels like such a separate enterprise -- though licensing obviously brings in a lot of money.

[Barnack]

18 minutes ago, TalismanRing said:

The breaking of the monopoly where studios had to sell their theater chains and the advent of TV with original programming was the biggest blow to studios

 

Really big blow for their movie division, but from the studio point of views it created new extremely profitable studio TV division, TV is a giant revenue source for studios and they are still the one making the TV money, it is a big competition to the movies theater but a competition from the studios themselves. Around that time you also had at the same time urban sprawl happening that really made going to the theater not has easy for a large part of the population. World TV had a lot of money in it.

[Chaz]

At the height of the Golden Era, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid CEO in America.

[Barnack]

11 minutes ago, Chaz said:

At the height of the Golden Era, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid CEO in America.

 

We don't really have studio CEO anymore to make a direct comparable (specially not studio founder like him), but the studio owner CEO are getting paid more than he was (adjusted for inflation) and are still in the most well paid people in the US

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/highest-paid-ceos-2016-2017-5/#8-ginni-rometty-3

 

Last year:

Bewkes: 32.6 million (Warner)

Roberts: 33 m (Comcast)

Iger: 41m (Disney)

Moonves: 68.6m (CBS)

 

Louis B Mayer was doing at MGM around $21,657,639 in today money according to wikipedia

 

[RobinHood26]

3 hours ago, grey ghost said:

 

Don't studios consider merchandising potential before they greenlight a film?

 

It also doesn't techincaly help the actually studios bottom line usually, since its mostly different company arms.