Take MGM during the heyday of the old studio system, it had almost 30 soundstages on the lot, always active or under construction and would be cranking films out constantly, and that doesn’t include location shooting around the wildly different environments near LA - deserts and chaparral, forests and mountains, etc.
Now add to that Warner, RKO (later renamed to Universal), Paramount, United Artists, etc.
Directors and stars were under contract for wages, would be in several films each and every year.
Now add to that all the lower budget studios cranking out cheap-o b-movies, mostly horror and noir.
Movies used to be a lot cheaper to make. Taxi Driver cost about $1.5 million back in 1976. Faster Pussycat Kill Kill was made for about $45,000.
Quick lesson. The old model was to open a major movie in a prestige theater [ie Radio City Music Hall] where it would run for as long as it was profitable. After that it would go to smaller houses, and eventually become a double bill. People waited on line for years to see ‘The Exorcist’ because it was only showing at a few places.
Jaws was the first summer blockbuster. The studio planned to open it up in a lot of theaters on the same day. The plan worked. About the same time, the VCR started becoming popular. Thise two things changed the way movies got distributed forever.
Now there’s some food for thought… The Exorcist could have been the first modern blockbuster, it had all the ingredients, only it was one year too early, the immediate precursor before they tried what they did with Jaws.
Look at “Thunderball,” the Bondiest of the Bond movies. Bond assaults a nurse, kills a dozen guys with a spear gun, and that movie was considered fine for general audiences. They even sold Bond toys to little kids, including a fake knife.
Studios didn’t own the streaming or broadcast TV channels then. Now they make more money by selling the property through channels they own and control.
![[UPDATE] "The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie" will reportedly be pulled from theaters this Wednesday](https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/8b5b628a-b8ed-4f51-9231-397caf2b3a24.jpeg){kind=link}
When Star Wars first came out it ran in the theaters for two years.
Gone With The Wind ran at one theater in Georgia until 1969.
Sure, but they didn’t pump out that many movies back then.
Yes they did, indeedy!
Take MGM during the heyday of the old studio system, it had almost 30 soundstages on the lot, always active or under construction and would be cranking films out constantly, and that doesn’t include location shooting around the wildly different environments near LA - deserts and chaparral, forests and mountains, etc.
Now add to that Warner, RKO (later renamed to Universal), Paramount, United Artists, etc.
Directors and stars were under contract for wages, would be in several films each and every year.
Now add to that all the lower budget studios cranking out cheap-o b-movies, mostly horror and noir.
Movies used to be a lot cheaper to make. Taxi Driver cost about $1.5 million back in 1976. Faster Pussycat Kill Kill was made for about $45,000.
Quick lesson. The old model was to open a major movie in a prestige theater [ie Radio City Music Hall] where it would run for as long as it was profitable. After that it would go to smaller houses, and eventually become a double bill. People waited on line for years to see ‘The Exorcist’ because it was only showing at a few places.
Jaws was the first summer blockbuster. The studio planned to open it up in a lot of theaters on the same day. The plan worked. About the same time, the VCR started becoming popular. Thise two things changed the way movies got distributed forever.
Now there’s some food for thought… The Exorcist could have been the first modern blockbuster, it had all the ingredients, only it was one year too early, the immediate precursor before they tried what they did with Jaws.
It was rated “R” I think they’d have gone with something that people would bring kids to see.
Interesting thought though.
Crazy to think that Jaws was rated PG, but it’s true.
Look at “Thunderball,” the Bondiest of the Bond movies. Bond assaults a nurse, kills a dozen guys with a spear gun, and that movie was considered fine for general audiences. They even sold Bond toys to little kids, including a fake knife.
It was a simpler, gentler time.
Studios didn’t own the streaming or broadcast TV channels then. Now they make more money by selling the property through channels they own and control.
I wonder how many prints they wore out.
Good question.
I just imagine all of the theatrical prints ending up at that theater to die in their projectors.