The Justice Department is moving to terminate legal rules that have governed the movie industry since the late 1940s, a step that could shake up how movies are distributed and the terms on which they hit the big screen. (WSJ)
More specifically, the Justice Department will ask a federal court to eliminate the Paramount consent decrees, the 71-year-old restrictions on major distributors’ control of the exhibition pipeline. (Deadline)
The decrees sprang from a 1948 Supreme Court decision siding with the government in a decade-long battle with the major studios. (Variety)
In a speech Monday to the American Bar Association, assistant attorney general Makan Delrahim said that the DOJ’s Antitrust Division is moving to terminate the decrees, “except for a two-year sunset period on the bans on block booking and circuit dealing.” The sunset period is designed to allow the movie studios and theater chains time to adjust to the change. (THR / THR, Esq.)