Power Surge

Conglomerate Hollywood and the Studio System's Last Hurrah

Thomas Schatz

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520415829
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

"[An] impressive work . . . an entertaining pop history"—The Wall Street Journal

From the author of The Genius of the System, the classic tale of Hollywood's first golden age, comes the story of its last.

Thomas Schatz returns us to an era when a newly enriched movie industry rediscovered its creative energy, and indie went mainstream without losing its edge.

Between 1989 and 2004, all the old studios either merged with other media giants or were swallowed up by even bigger diversified behemoths, leading to an infusion of money and fast-tracking the digital revolution. Yet even as CGI and piles of cash fueled a new breed of blockbusters—Batman and Titanic, Toy Story and The Lord of the Rings—an indie ethos permeated the industry. And at the crossroads of commodification and aesthetic vision, auteurs ranging from Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino to Sofia Coppola and Ang Lee became household names.

Power Surge traces these trajectories, which increasingly clashed and commingled during the 1990s and early 2000s, resulting in nothing short of a new golden age—and perhaps the last gasp of the century-old studio system.

Table of contents

• Title
• Copyright
• Subvention
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction: The Genesis of a New System
• Part One: The First Wave (1989)
• Part Two: Ebb Tide (1990–1992)
• Part Three: The Second Wave (1993–1995)
• Part Four: Rip Tide (1996–1998)
• Part Five: The Third Wave (1999–2001)
• Part Six: High Tide (2002–2004)
• Epilogue: Franchise Fever, the Next Wave, and the Streaming Era
• Acknowledgments
• Conglomerate Hollywood Timeline
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index