Trump’s Justice Department Wants to Change the Movie Industry
The administration is preparing to get rid of old antitrust rules that keep major film studios in check. This could be bad news for smaller theater chains and audiences alike.
One of the most pivotal moments in Hollywood history came in 1948, not on a soundstage or in a cinema, but at the Supreme Court, via a case known as United States v.. In a 7–1 decision, the Court ruled that film studios couldn’t legally own their own theaters, disrupting a system by which major distributors had controlled every level of the moviegoing experience. That vertical integration, which had meant that many theaters were allowed to show only one studio’s films, was dashed in the name of antitrust laws. A decades-old system was shattered, creating more competition. Now, more than 70 years later, Donald Trump’s administration is announcing that .
