The iron fist of history seems finally to be coming for Tinseltown. Beyond the financial blows inflicted by the pandemic and the actors' and writers' strikes, the vast Los Angeles-based entertainment industry known as Hollywood is facing the far greater forces of economic disruption that have already struck the rest of the United States. Much like manufacturing, agriculture and other major segments of the U.S.
And nobody seems sure about the long-term viability of Hollywood’s bread and butter — the feature film made for the big screen. Is this time really different? Nothing comes close to the breadth and depth of the industry's economic crisis today except what happened in the early 1950s, another period of technological upheaval when television became ubiquitous in American homes. Television hit as federal antitrust lawsuits broke up studios’ control over theaters.