1990s Hollywood
A01=Thomas Schatz
acquisitions
auteur directors
Author_Thomas Schatz
blockbuster franchises
Category=ATF
Category=ATFA
Category=KJVB
Category=KNT
Category=KNTC
digital effects
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eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
film industry transformation
forthcoming
Golden Age
Hollywood history
independent film
indie cinema
indie directors
media conglomerates
studio mergers
tentpole films
Product details
- ISBN 9780520415805
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 07 Jul 2026
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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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.
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.
Thomas Schatz is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. He is author of The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, ranked by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the twenty greatest film books.
