II

		early on, failed to acknowledge television as a potential source of income for their products. 5 Rational business practices were therefore forced upon an industry that had grown in relative protection from outsiders. "Hotshot" CEOs were suddenly surveying their new domains with calculative eyes: was it possible to extract new profits from movies, conquer new markets, and generally increase filmmaking revenues?

		III

		The answer remained in doubt until an entirely new breed of players replaced the ill-fitted combines. You are familiar with today's names: Disney, Sony, Seagram's, Time-Warner, etc. The new owners differentiated themselves from their predecessors because their joint interests stood in related areas: television networks, cable companies, printing presses, publishing houses, bookstore chains, radio stations, record companies, newspapers and magazines, advertising and billboard companies, etc. Instead of remaining autonomous, each company could now be used to help the others reach maximum audience exposure. Indeed it is the effective "synergy" between them that made possible a vast increase in receipts and profits, and helped redefine a movie as a lead item for a variety of ancillary goods.

		Typically a big picture's opening is now accompanied by the simultaneous release of a book based on the film's story and a CD of its music. At the same time, all sorts of merchandise clothing, toys, lunch boxes, etc. become suddenly available in stores everywhere. The film's animated characters inevitably pop up on McDonald's packaging. And eventually, the picture's "concept" or characters are exported to theme parks, television shows, video games, CD-ROM's, etc.6 With a campaign in full swing, the "product" can now be encountered not only on theater screens but also in all areas of daily life: in advertisements on TV, billboards, magazines and newspapers, in book and record stores, in restaurants and department stores, in supermarkets, even on people themselves as they advertise the film on their T-shirts and baseball caps. Or vice versa, the picture itself can function as a billboard for other products, for instance when a protagonist "happens" to smoke a Marlboro cigarette, shop at Macy's, or eat some H agen Dazs ice cream. All these gimmicks and alliances have clearly expanded the reach and visibility of a film, turning it into an event that one needs to see in order to participate in