Facing an economic crisis in the 1980s, the Hollywood industry moved boldly to control the ancillary markets of videotape, video disk, pay-cable and pay-per-view, and the major studios found themselves targeted for acquisition by global media and communications companies. This volume examines the decade's transformation that took Hollywood from the production of theatrical film to media software.

Some of the films discussed in this volume include:

Platoon

Do the Right Thing

Blue Velvet

Diner

E.T.

Batman

Body Heat

About the Author

Stephen Prince is Professor of Communication Studies at Virginia Tech. His books include The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa (1999); Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies (1998); and Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Films (1992).

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Contents
1 The Industry at the Dawn of the Decade
2 Merger Mania
3 The Brave New Ancillary World
4 Independents, Packaging, and Inflationary:Pressure in 1980s Hollywood
Justin Wyatt
5 The Talent Oligopoly
6 The Filmmakers
7 Genres and Production Cycles
8 Movies and Morality
9 American Documentary in the 1980s
Carl Plantinga
10 Experimental Cinema in the 1980s
Scott MacDonald
Appendices:
APPENDIX 1 LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
APPENDIX 2 TOP BOX-OFFICE FILMS OF THE 1980s
APPENDIX :3 MAJOR ACADEMY AWARDS, 1980-1988
APPENDIX 4 THE NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY 45:3
Notes
Bibliography
Picture Sources
General Index
Index of Films

Reviews

"Stephen Prince's A New Pot of Gold is good at sustaining a coherent historical narrative and critical commentary on the 1980s--a period when video and film grew closer together, and when Hollywood came under the control of global capitalism."—James O. Naremore, author of Acting in the Cinema

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews