The current coronavirus pandemic shut down movie theaters and film production for some time, but we were able to go home and watch TV. It wasn't so in the fall of 1918 when a flu pandemic swept the world. The film industry was gearing up for a record breaking season with veterans returning from World War I when their audiences began to sicken, and municipalities eventually forced theaters to close.
While theaters were closed, a shakedown began to occur. Many smaller theater owners, distribution companies, and production studios couldn't survive the lockdown. They were bought up by larger interests, and studios began to build their own theaters as well -the better to control the product from the top down. The shakeup in the industry led to the "studio system" of the mid-20th century, in which a few wealthy companies held a grip on the entire industry. Read about the effect of the 1918 flu pandemic on theaters at Jstor Daily. -via Strange Company
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