Mainstream Cinema

By the end of the 1920's, there were 20 Hollywood studios, and the silent films were being manufactured, assembly-line style, in Hollywood's 'entertainment factories'.
Even these earliest films were organized into genres, with instantly recognisable storylines, settings, costumes and characters to fulfil audience expectations. The emphasis was on swashbucklers, historical extravaganzas and melodramas, although all kinds of films were being produced throughout the decade.
The studio system was established in the 1920s, with long-term contracts for stars and increasingly rigid control of directors and stars. After the First World War America was the leading producer in the world, although the 'factory' system did limit the creativity of many directors. Production was in the hands of the major studios who had consolidated and now controlled all aspects of a film's development - vertical intregration. By 1929, the Big Five were producing more than 90% of global output.
The Big Five had vast studios with elaborate sets for film production. They owned their own production and distribution facilities and distributed their films to their own theatres. The Big Five were, Warner Bros, Paramount, Twentieth Century-Fox, RKO and MGM. Universal, United Artists and Columbia were known as the 'little studios' because they did not have complete vertical integration of all stages of production and distribution. In one form or another these studios still run Hollywood today.