The big six film studios - Assignment 4 Unit 1 research

American Film Industry

There are six major studios that control 90% of all film, they are

• Warner Brothers
• Paramount
• 21st Century Fox
• Walt Disney Pictures
• Columbia Pictures
• Universal Pictures

Warner Brothers was founded by four of the Warner brothers and it is a subsidiary of Time Warner their owner. Time Warner also own many other companies, some of which are HBO, New Line Cinema and DC Comics. Time Warner is a formation of Warner Communications and Time Inc. As well as the assets of a third party - Turner Broadcasting System. 

Paramount or also known as Paramount Pictures is a television and film studio. It is a subsidiary of major media conglomerate Viacom. Paramount are a member of The Motion Picture Association of America. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was formally a distribution and motion picture company, it later became Paramount Picture which is a division of Viacom.

21st Century Fox is a massive media corporation which was founded by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The corporation is now made up of two parts, 21st Century Fox take care of all the film assets and the news broadcasting. The publishing assets of the corporation is run by the more recent forming of the News Corp. 

The American film production company Walt Disney Pictures is a division of The Walt Disney Studios which is then owned by The Walt Disney Company. Most of their picture film releases are distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Columbia Pictures Industries (known mostly as just Columbia) is a film production company in America as well as a distribution studio. They are part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group. Columbia as a company are owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. 

What are the positives and negative of having six big studios?

The positives of having six big studios is that it means that more films can be made with a better more expensive budget. Other positives would be that with a big company there is a lot of experts who have the training to invest their time into the film giving it all their skills to make it as Oscar worthy as possible. The money which the big companies own also means that the expanse of the film will be a lot better and the production will be of a much higher value.

The negatives of having six big film studios is that it means many of their films which are released are all fairly similar in some way or another. It also means that if they are owned by the state or a big media mogul or company then many bias or opposing views could be subjected into their films. For example Rupert Murdoch who owns 21st Century Fox has been criticised for being a right wing supporter so many of his views could be shown in their films, without people even knowing.  The six big film studios could also mean that low budget indie films are gone unnoticed because of the overpowering bigger films.