By: Alyssa Blackstone

In March of 2021, a theater chain called Alamo Drafthouse filed for bankruptcy. Alamo Drafthouse is a beloved chain in the cities it is present in, such as Austin (the city where it was founded), Los Angeles, and New York. It is known for serving food and alcohol during the screenings, prohibiting cell phone use, screening its films ad-free and instead displaying a tailor-made to the film it plays in front of.. While being beloved, Alamo Drafthouse unfortunately suffered from the economic consequences of the Covid pandemic, the writer and actor strike, and decreasing numbers of theatergoers in general. 

In a move that saved the chain from disappearing forever, Sony Pictures Entertainment bought the theater franchise in June 2024. They allegedly purchased the chain for $200 million, and will run it out of the new Sony Pictures Experiences Division. This is an almost unprecedented move, however.  A major film studio has not owned a theater chain in over 70 years. 

This is due to the Supreme Court case United States v. Paramount. In this case, eight movie studios were accused of price fixing theater tickets and essentially monopolizing the exhibition of theater films. The Supreme Court found that the studios had engaged in monopolization and conspiracy to fix theater prices, and from this case the Paramount Decrees were born. 

The Paramount Decrees, among other things, prohibited the movie studios from both distributing their film and owning theaters at the same time without the consent of the court. This is why major film studios have not owned movie theaters or theater chains until very recently. Regulations have relaxed over the years, such as Sony and Universal being allowed to own stake in the theater chain Loews, or Netflix being able to own theaters in Los Angeles and New York. 

In 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) rescinded the Paramount Decrees. There were two major reasons for this decision. First, the DOJ believed that the way the studios that first signed the decrees existed is different now. Many of the studios are run differently or are owned by other companies. Alongside that, the way Hollywood functions now is completely different from the way it used to function, making the Paramount Decrees unviable in the modern era. 

With the Paramount Decrees gone, that opened the way for a studio like Sony Pictures to purchase the Alamo Drafthouse chain, completely legally. Sony is the first major studio to make this move, but not the only one thinking about it. Amazon has been rumored to be eyeing the theater chain AMC for a future buyout. 
While maybe not a monopoly in the same way as in the old Hollywood system, some believe cinema is once again becoming a monopoly, with how many studios are buying up and acquiring other studios, making the entertainment we consumed controlled by fewer and fewer companies. Movie studios being able to buy up theaters and theater chains could contribute to that, once again giving them control over distribution and exhibition of the films that we watch.