“After the success of The Blair Witch Project … it seemed that any-one with a dream, a camera and an Internet account could get a film made—or, at least, market it cheaply once it was made.”
ABBY ELLIN, NEW YORK TIMES, 2000
After years of thriving, the Hollywood movie industry began to falter after 1946. Weekly movie attendance in the United States peaked at ninety million in 1946, then fell to under twenty-five million by 1963. Critics and observers began talking about the death of Hollywood, claiming that the Golden Age was over. However, the movie industry adapted and survived, just as it continues to do today. Among the changing conditions facing the film industry were the communist witch-hunts in Hollywood, the end of the industry’s vertical integration, suburbanization, the arrival of television, and the appearance of home entertainment.