weekend, weekly box-office returns, critics' ratings, and the belief that expensive, high-budget films meant quality. One of the emerging trends of the late 80s and 90s was that although about the same number of pictures were produced as in the "Golden Age of Hollywood" (about 450-500 in a year), many of the films that were produced (an estimated 40%) went directly to video with no cinematic release at all. And the window of time between a film's theatrical opening and availability for cable TV or home viewing shrunk drastically. It was significant that the first new Hollywood studio in many decades, Dream Works (SKG), was formed in 1994 as the brainchild of director-producer Steven Spielberg, ex-Disney executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, and film producer/music industry giant David Geffen. The studio's first theatrical release was first-time feature director Mimi Leder's The Peacemaker, in 1997. In the very next year, Disney Studios acquired the maverick studio for $65 million.The trend toward sequels from the previous decade continued, but Hollywood was also attempting to deal with serious themes, including homelessness, the Holocaust, AIDS, feminism, and racism, while making bottom-line profits. There were a number of mainstream films that confronted the issues in a profound way. In 1993, director Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia, was the first big-studio attempt to deal with AIDS, winning for Tom Hanks the first of consecutive Best Actor Oscars. With seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, Steven Spielberg's long and serious B/W Holocaust epic Schindler's List, made in 1993, was a significant milestone, but also a grim story about an opportunistic German businessman in Poland who ultimately saved over 1,000 Jews from death.Two special-effects-laden, predictably-scripted apocalpytic disaster films racked up huge profits. Both were about destructive meteors or asteroids hurtling...
