1924, new york projection tycoon Marcus Loy decided to buy two well-run Hollywood film companies, Mitro Film Company and godwin Film Company. In this way, his Roy company's hundreds of cinemas have a stable film source, and he also got godwin's mascot lion Leon. However, this has created a new problem, that is, no one takes care of Hollywood business for him. His assistant, Nicholas Sink, is a good candidate, but the chain cinemas in new york cannot do without him.
/kloc-In April of 0/6, Marcus Loy solved this problem once and for all. He bought the company of the famous independent filmmaker Louis Meyer. The new company MGM (the abbreviation of the names of three companies: Mitro, godwin and Meyer) was handed over to Louis Meyer for production and distribution on the west coast, while Marcus Loyler sat in new york and continued to expand his cinema chain.
Louis Meyer first found himself a helper, irving thalberg, who was called a pastime, and then canceled many shooting plans and moved them to the company's big studio in Carver City. At this time, the company's biggest shooting project was Ben Hur, which was filmed in Rome for several months and seemed endless. It has become the most expensive movie in Hollywood's history, but Louis Meyer turned bad things into good things, and with this film, MGM's reputation for making high-quality movies was established.
It only took Louis Meyer a year to make MGM surpass the world and become the number one studio in Hollywood. A quarter of a century later, MGM dominated this position and did not loosen. 1927, Marcus Loy died. William Fox, the founder of Fox Company, thinks it's time to build a movie empire and prepare to buy MGM.
1929, with the consent of Nicholas Sink, the successor of Marcus Loy, William Fox bought the shares of MGM owned by the Loy family, which was a blow to Louis Meyer and irving thalberg, because they had no equity in the company and could be swept out of the house at any time. Louis Meyer decided to fight back. Through his old relationship with the Ministry of Justice, he sued William Fox for violating the anti-monopoly law. In the end, the acquisition failed and Louis Meyer kept his job. Nicholas Sink was very angry about this, and for the next 30 years, the relationship between new york, the two main divisions of MGM, and Hollywood was always tense.
In Hollywood, Louis Meyer and irving thalberg showed their talents. They know the audience's psychology well and are committed to making large-scale movies. Greta garbo, john gilbert, Norma Sheila and Joan Crawford are already in the company, and they have recruited Ron Qian Ning and buster keaton from other companies. After entering the era of talking movies, they unearthed a number of stars such as clark gable, robert montgomery and Jane Harlow.
Because most of Marcus Loy's cinemas are located in new york and the northeastern cities, and MGM's moviegoers all live in cities, their films are exquisite and sophisticated. Even during the Great Depression, MGM did not lose money, which its competitors could not do. Throughout the 1930s, MGM was the only company in Hollywood that distributed dividends to shareholders.
In the forties, MGM changed its business strategy, reducing the number of films from 50 to 25, but putting more emphasis on film quality. At this stage, the company discovered stars such as Jim Carrey, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, and made a lot of sensational music films.
195 1 In August, Louis Meyer was fired. Although he has produced such well-received blockbusters as Parisians in new york, Singing in the Rain and Float Parade. During this period, MGM's most successful film was the musical Kiki, which won MGM the Oscar for Best Picture.
1959, MGM remake the epic Ben Hurst, a four-hour blockbuster starring Charles Hurston, which was also a great success. MGM has maintained this style of large-scale film production since then, and spent the company's main energy on large-scale production, including Wang Zhongwang, Four Horsemen of Revelation and mutiny on bounty, all of which inherited Xu Ben's epic production style.
Second, the road of diversified development.
1969, Kirk Kerkorian, an investor from Nevada, fully acquired MGM. But Kirk Kerkorian seems to be more interested in the property owned by MGM. He even closed the distribution department of MGM on 1973 and handed over the distribution affairs to the United States. 1979, Kirk Kirkrian even announced that MGM had become a hotel company.
All MGM hotels (including MGM Macau and MGM Golden Hall in Las Vegas) are casino hotels under MGM International Hotel Group, whose founder Kirk Kerkorian was the boss of MGM Company.
MGM Grand, the largest hotel group in Las Vegas, was originally named MGM Golden Palace Group, and was renamed MGM Group after acquiring Mandalay Resort Group and MirageResorts. Its hotels include Sword Hotel, Treasure Island Hotel, Mandalay Bay Hotel, Belladji Ou Hotel, MGM Hotel and new york Hotel.
MGM Hotel MGM Hotel is the largest hotel in Las Vegas, and the performance in the hotel alone costs nearly $200 million. The lion is the symbol of the hotel. It is said that when the hotel was just built, the lion's mouth was full of demonstrations, but the business was not good. It was suggested that the lion's big mouth must give people a bad feeling and avoid it, so the hotel owner changed the lion's mouth to slightly open, and the financial resources rolled in. In order to highlight the theme of the lion, the hotel lobby also opened a corner to build a lion garden, so that lion tamers can play with lions for tourists to watch. Rainforest restaurant is also a major feature of It hotel. Although its taste is not so good and its consumption is not low, people are constantly flowing, mainly to experience the unique environment here. In order to gain a place in Las Vegas, where there are many hotels, every store must make every effort to create its own unique skills, and only by surprise can it win.
Third, the two movie giants joined hands.
C. Chaplin (comedian), D. Van Punk, M. beakley and D. W. Griffith founded American companies. The purpose is to get rid of the bondage and exploitation of big film companies and strive for more creative freedom and greater profits. The original idea was just to produce and distribute the works of four founders. Later, due to Griffith's withdrawal, the number of works by Chaplin, Van Punk and others was limited, so the company focused on subsidizing independent filmmakers to make films and distribute their films. America was different from other film companies at that time. It doesn't have its own studio and needs to rent a venue to shoot. There are no movie stars and directors hired by themselves, and they make movies by investing in independent filmmakers; Without its own cinema, the distribution of films is in the form of signing contracts with publishers one by one. The United States is the first large company to adopt the production and sales methods popular in the United States in the 1960s. This mode of operation and the relative independence of directors enable the United States to shoot and distribute some films with certain influence and artistic achievements in addition to entertainment films. For example, Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Life on the Stage (1952) and David Griffith's Scarface. United States was founded as a small company in new york, and gradually developed into one of the eight major companies in the American film industry from the 1920s to the mid-1930s. In 1950s, the American film industry entered a period of depression and recession, and Chaplin and Billy sold their shares to financial capitalists one after another. After that, the United States changed hands several times, and was finally bought by MGM boss K. Kerkorian at 198 1, merged into MGM and renamed MGM-American Entertainment Company.