The 2008 financial crisis plus DVD decline killed the specialty film divisions

Evidence

Often missing from these accounts is an attention to the industry’s structure beyond the studio/independent spectrum and what replaced the shuttered Fine Line (2005), New Line (2008), Warner Independent (2008), Picturehouse (2008), Miramax (2010), and Paramount Vantage (2013). Tzioumakis describes this period as an “extensive shakeout” of the American specialty film market, following the 2008 financial crisis, while Alisa Perren suggests that the decline of DVD sales contributed to the “near collapse of the specialty sector” in those years. Though their roots can be traced back to at least 1996, it was in this period around 2008, when the studios abandoned indiewood, that billionaire boutiques sought to fill the gap with findies and financial engineering. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 269

Categorization

• XREF: The shuttering years and the ‘billionaire boutiques fill the gap’ claim directly serve the reader’s Wall Street-to-Hollywood causal chain.
• SEED: The exact dates studios shed specialty divisions (2005-2013) could anchor an article tracing when billionaire financing replaced studio backing in indie film.