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"In Hollywood, the goals of art and business are entangled. Directors, writers, actors and idealistic producers aspire to make the best films possible. These aspirations often interact with the dominant firms that control Hollywood film distribution. This control of distribution is crucial, as it enables the firms and other large businesses involved, like banks that offer financing, to effectively stand between film production and the market. This book analyses the power structure of the Hollywood film business and its general modes of behaviour. More specifically, the work analyses how the largest Hollywood firms attempt to control social creativity such that they can mitigate the financial risks inherent in the art of filmmaking. Controlling the ways people make or watch films, the book argues, is a key element of Hollywood's capitalist power. Capitalist power-the ability to control, modify and, sometimes, limit social creation through the rights of ownership-is the foundation of capital accumulation. For the Hollywood film business, capitalist power is about the ability of business concerns to set the terms that will shape the future of cinema. For the major film distributors of Hollywood, these terms include the types of films that will be distributed, the number of films that will be distributed, and the cinematic alternatives that will be made available to the individual moviegoer. Combining theoretical analysis with detailed empirical research on the financial performance of the major Hollywood film companies, the book details how Hollywood's capitalist goals have clashed with the aesthetic potentials of cinema and ultimately stymied creativity in the pursuit of limiting risk. This sharp critique of the Hollywood machine provides vital reading for students and scholars of political economy, political theory, film studies and cinema. James McMahon currently teaches at the University of Toronto, Canada. His main research interests are the Hollywood film business, New Hollywood cinema, social theories of mass culture, political economic theory, and the relationship between institutional power and cultural practices"--

This paper builds an empirical and theoretical model to analyze how the financial goal of risk reduction changed the insides of Hollywood's star system. For the moviegoer looking at Hollywood cinema from the outside, the function of the star system has remained the same since the 1920s: to have recognizable actors attract large audiences to Hollywood's biggest and most expensive productions. The composition of this system is, however, sensitive to many historical changes in the business and culture of cinema. If the evolution of Hollywood's star system is shaped by broader social factors, risk reduction would be a key factor after 1980. This paper uses Internet Movie Database (IMDb) casting data to analyze how the star system was a factor in this period of risk reduction. Film casting assists risk reduction when a star system is built on controlled repetition. Repetitive casting — choosing the same people to star in a series of films — is a form of control because repetitive selection is the inequality of opportunity by another name: if an in-group is internally repetitive when alternatives exist, an out-group is repeatedly excluded. There are two key conclusions to the analysis of the IMDb dataset. First, casting repetitiveness/inequality in the blockbuster era of Hollywood (1980-present) is low compared to Hollywood's "classical" studio system (1930-1948). Second, the historically low repetitiveness/inequality can be misleading if we ignore sector characteristics such as firm size and level of theatrical distribution. Within the top-tier, whether measured by size of distributor or number of opening theatres in theatrical release, Hollywood relies on repetitive casting. The theoretical part of this paper will identify the role of capitalist power in the formation of a star system. Capitalist power, in this case, is defined as the ability of Hollywood to control everything from the industrial production of films to the broader social relations of cinema. This control is never absolute, but the role of capitalist power in the star system has a key purpose: to make sure that casting decisions are complementary to business interests.

In the March 2021 issue of Harper's, Scorsese wrote an essay to pay tribute to Federico Fellini, the Italian director who directed such great films as La Strada, 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Nights of Cabiria and Satyricon. Scorsese writing on Fellini is definitely newsworthy for cinephiles who want to know about Fellini's beginnings in Italian neo-realism (for example, he worked with Rosselini on Rome, Open City), or who simply want to be reminded of why his filmography is so great. However, the news of this essay's arrival went well beyond film studies and had very little to do with Fellini. People were talking about the essay because Scorcese framed his tribute to Fellini – which was both personal and knowledgeable – with an argument about the decline of cinema as an art form. This paper explains why Scorsese is right about the differences that exist between himself and a director like Fellini. In fact, we can use Scorsese's argument as a platform to widen our perspective on the political economy of Hollywood. The story Scorsese is telling about the business of Hollywood is a story about business interests wanting to reduce risk. The ambiguity of risk in this story – is it financial risk or is it aesthetic risk? – is a helpful shortcut to understanding what reducing risk means for those who have control over the industrial art of filmmaking. When the Hollywood film business is estimating its future earnings, risk perceptions account for the possibility that the future of culture will be different–and perhaps radically different–from what capitalists expect it to be. This logic of capitalist accounting, while quantitative in expression (prices, income, volatility, etc.), is social in essence. For this reason, the capitalization of cinema cannot overlook any social dimension of cinema, be it aesthetic, political or cultural. The eye of capitalization searches for any social condition that could have an impact on "the level and pattern of capitalist earnings" (Nitzan & Bichler, 2009, p. 166). This paper is a lightly edited compilation of a two-part series originally published by Notes on Cinema in June and July, 2021. It has been re-published here with permission of the author.

In the March 2021 issue of Harper's, Scorsese wrote an essay to pay tribute to Federico Fellini, the Italian director who directed such great films as La Strada, 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Nights of Cabiria and Satyricon. Scorsese writing on Fellini is definitely newsworthy for cinephiles who want to know about Fellini's beginnings in Italian neo-realism (for example, he worked with Rosselini on Rome, Open City), or who simply want to be reminded of why his filmography is so great. However, the news of this essay's arrival went well beyond film studies and had very little to do with Fellini. People were talking about the essay because Scorcese framed his tribute to Fellini – which was both personal and knowledgeable – with an argument about the decline of cinema as an art form. This paper explains why Scorsese is right about the differences that exist between himself and a director like Fellini. In fact, we can use Scorsese's argument as a platform to widen our perspective on the political economy of Hollywood. The story Scorsese is telling about the business of Hollywood is a story about business interests wanting to reduce risk. The ambiguity of risk in this story – is it financial risk or is it aesthetic risk? – is a helpful shortcut to understanding what reducing risk means for those who have control over the industrial art of filmmaking. When the Hollywood film business is estimating its future earnings, risk perceptions account for the possibility that the future of culture will be different–and perhaps radically different–from what capitalists expect it to be. This logic of capitalist accounting, while quantitative in expression (prices, income, volatility, etc.), is social in essence. For this reason, the capitalization of cinema cannot overlook any social dimension of cinema, be it aesthetic, political or cultural. The eye of capitalization searches for any social condition that could have an impact on "the level and pattern of capitalist earnings" (Nitzan & Bichler, 2009, p. 166). This paper is a ...

This paper builds an empirical and theoretical model to analyze how the financial goal of risk reduction changed the insides of Hollywood's star system. For the moviegoer looking at Hollywood cinema from the outside, the function of the star system has remained the same since the 1920s: to have recognizable actors attract large audiences to Hollywood's biggest and most expensive productions. The composition of this system is, however, sensitive to many historical changes in the business and culture of cinema. If the evolution of Hollywood's star system is shaped by broader social factors, risk reduction would be a key factor after 1980. This paper uses Internet Movie Database (IMDb) casting data to analyze how the star system was a factor in this period of risk reduction. Film casting assists risk reduction when a star system is built on controlled repetition. Repetitive casting - choosing the same people to star in a series of films - is a form of control because repetitive selection is the inequality of opportunity by another name: if an in-group is internally repetitive when alternatives exist, an out-group is repeatedly excluded. There are two key conclusions to the analysis of the IMDb dataset. First, casting repetitiveness/inequality in the blockbuster era of Hollywood (1980-present) is low compared to Hollywood's "classical" studio system (1930-1948). Second, the historically low repetitiveness/inequality can be misleading if we ignore sector characteristics such as firm size and level of theatrical distribution. Within the top-tier, whether measured by size of distributor or number of opening theatres in theatrical release, Hollywood relies on repetitive casting. The theoretical part of this paper will identify the role of capitalist power in the formation of a star system. Capitalist power, in this case, is defined as the ability of Hollywood to control everything from the industrial production of films to the broader social relations of cinema. This control is never absolute, but the role of capitalist power in the star system has a key purpose: to make sure that casting decisions are complementary to business interests.

From the 1980s to the present, Hollywood's major distributors have been able to redistribute U.S. theatrical attendance to the advantage of their biggest blockbusters and franchises. At the global scale and during the same period, Hollywood has been leveraging U.S. foreign power to break ground in countries that have historically protected and supported their domestic film culture. For example, Hollywood's major distributors have increased their power in such countries as Mexico, Canada, Australia and South Korea. This paper will analyze a pertinent test case' for Hollywood's global power: China and its film market. Not only does China have a film-quota policy that restricts the number of theatrical releases that have a foreign distributor (∼ 20 to 34 films per year), the Communist Party has helped the Chinese film business grow to have steady film releases and its own movie star system. Theoretically, China would be a prime example of a film market that would need to be opened with the assistance of the U.S. government. Empirically, however, the case of Chinese cinema might be a curious exception; we can investigate how a political economic strategy rooted in explicit power is reaching a limit. Hollywood is, potentially without any other option, taking a more friendly, collaborative approach with China's censorship rules and its quota and film-production laws.

A recent New Political Economy article by Baines and Hager (2020) critiqued Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan's capital-as-power (CasP) model of the stock market (Bichler & Nitzan, 2016). Bichler and Nitzan's model of the stock market seeks to explain how financial crises are tied to the (upper) limits of redistributing income through power. Bichler and Nitzan use American financial data to show that "U.S.-based capitalists" have risen to a great height of power, relative to the underlying population. This height also produces a "forward-looking" fear about the ability to accumulate even more (Bichler & Nitzan, 2016). Baines and Hager took the important step of examining the CasP model with financial data from four other countries–France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan. They argue that these countries follow some of the patterns of the United States, but not all. These differences in patterns matter because Baines and Hager are curious to know how the CasP model of the stock market can function as a general model of capital accumulation at an international level. This paper will respond to the part of Baines and Hager's paper where they analyze "systemic fear" in the stock markets of France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan. It argues that Baines and Hager were perhaps too quick to dismiss systemic fear as a concept to study national and regional differences in international political economy. This concept is still in its infancy and, with more consideration, there are opportunities to investigate the characteristics of systemic fear. By re-examining systemic fear in twelve countries, this paper will show the potential for the concept of systemic fear to support the study of capitalist crisis and national diversity in capitalist development.

A recent New Political Economy article by Baines and Hager (2020) critiqued Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan's capital-as-power (CasP) model of the stock market (Bichler & Nitzan, 2016). Bichler and Nitzan's model of the stock market seeks to explain how financial crises are tied to the (upper) limits of redistributing income through power. Bichler and Nitzan use American financial data to show that "U.S.-based capitalists" have risen to a great height of power, relative to the underlying population. This height also produces a "forward-looking" fear about the ability to accumulate even more (Bichler & Nitzan, 2016). Baines and Hager took the important step of examining the CasP model with financial data from four other countries-France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan. They argue that these countries follow some of the patterns of the United States, but not all. These differences in patterns matter because Baines and Hager are curious to know how the CasP model of the stock market can function as a general model of capital accumulation at an international level. This paper will respond to the part of Baines and Hager's paper where they analyze "systemic fear" in the stock markets of France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan. It argues that Baines and Hager were perhaps too quick to dismiss systemic fear as a concept to study national and regional differences in international political economy. This concept is still in its infancy and, with more consideration, there are opportunities to investigate the characteristics of systemic fear. By re-examining systemic fear in twelve countries, this paper will show the potential for the concept of systemic fear to support the study of capitalist crisis and national diversity in capitalist development.

From the 1980s to the present, Hollywood's major distributors have been able to redistribute U.S. theatrical attendance to the advantage of their biggest blockbusters and franchises. At the global scale and during the same period, Hollywood has been leveraging U.S. foreign power to break ground in countries that have historically protected and supported their domestic film culture. For example, Hollywood's major distributors have increased their power in such countries as Mexico, Canada, Australia and South Korea (Jin, 2011). This paper will analyze a pertinent "test case" for Hollywood's global power: China and its film market. Not only does China have a film-quota policy that restricts the number of theatrical releases that have a foreign distributor (~ 20 to 34 films per year), the Communist Party has also nurtured a Chinese film business that has steady film releases and its own movie star system. Theoretically, China would be a prime example of a film market that would need to be opened with the assistance of the U.S. government. Empirically, however, the case of Chinese cinema might be a curious exception; we can investigate how a political economic strategy rooted in explicit power is reaching a limit. Hollywood is, potentially without any other option, taking a more friendly, collaborative approach with China's censorship rules and its quota and film-production laws.

From the 1980s to the present, Hollywood's major distributors have been able to redistribute U.S. theatrical attendance to the advantage of their biggest blockbusters and franchises. At the global scale and during the same period, Hollywood has been leveraging U.S. foreign power to break ground in countries that have historically protected and supported their domestic film culture. For example, Hollywood's major distributors have increased their power in such countries as Mexico, Canada, Australia and South Korea (Jin, 2011). This paper will analyze a pertinent 'test case' for Hollywood's global power: China and its film market. Not only does China have a film-quota policy that restricts the number of theatrical releases that have a foreign distributor (~ 20 to 34 films per year), the Communist Party has also nurtured a Chinese film business that has steady film releases and its own movie star system. Theoretically, China would be a prime example of a film market that would need to be opened with the assistance of the U.S. government. Empirically, however, the case of Chinese cinema might be a curious exception; we can investigate how a political economic strategy rooted in explicit power is reaching a limit. Hollywood is, potentially without any other option, taking a more friendly, collaborative approach with China's censorship rules and its quota and film-production laws.

This paper seeks to explain why Hollywood's dominant firms are narrowing the scope of creativity in the contemporary period (1980–2015). The largest distributors have sought to prevent the art of filmmaking and its related social relations from becoming financial risks in the pursuit of profit. Major filmed entertainment, my term for the six largest distributors, must discount expected future earnings to present prices with the forward-looking logic of capitalisation; and uncertainty about where creativity in cinema is going can produce financial uncertainty about the future earning potential of new film projects. Conversely, a degree of confidence in the expected future earnings of Hollywood cinema can increase when the art of filmmaking and broader social world of mass culture are ordered by capitalist power [Nitzan, J. and Bichler, S., 2009. Capital as power: a study of order and creorder. New York: Routledge]. For the period of 1980–2015, major filmed entertainment lowered its risk relative to the period before, 1960–79. This historical process of risk reduction is the effect of major filmed entertainment making the wide-release strategy (a.k.a., saturation booking) more predictable through an aggressive implementation of the blockbuster style and the high concept standard.

This paper seeks to explain why Hollywood's dominant firms are narrowing the scope of creativity in the contemporary period (1980–2015). The largest distributors have sought to prevent the art of filmmaking and its related social relations from becoming financial risks in the pursuit of profit. Major filmed entertainment, my term for the six largest distributors, must discount expected future earnings to present prices with the forward-looking logic of capitalisation; and uncertainty about where creativity in cinema is going can produce financial uncertainty about the future earning potential of new film projects. Conversely, a degree of confidence in the expected future earnings of Hollywood cinema can increase when the art of filmmaking and broader social world of mass culture are ordered by capitalist power [Nitzan, J. and Bichler, S., 2009. Capital as power: a study of order and creorder. New York: Routledge]. For the period of 1980–2015, major filmed entertainment lowered its risk relative to the period before, 1960–79. This historical process of risk reduction is the effect of major filmed entertainment making the wide-release strategy (a.k.a., saturation booking) more predictable through an aggressive implementation of the blockbuster style and the high concept standard.