Movies Are Made in Hollywood Because of Thomas Edison

If you’re like me, your assumption for why California is the center of the entertainment industry is because, well, it’s nice there. Plenty of space and good weather. Plus, everyone’s intimidatingly attractive, though now that I think about, that might be more effect than cause. It’s one industry that, as much as they’d like to think they compete, New Yorkers really can’t hold a candle to Angelenos on. 

But it turns out that the reason the film industry moved out west wasn’t just convenience. There’s a very specific reason. Or better put, a very specific man responsible for it: Thomas Edison. You may have heard of him for his work on “light bulb”?

As it turns out, filmmakers of yore would have been pretty happy to keep pumping out media in New Jersey, but Edison was making it very complicated for them. In case you're not aware, in addition to being a genius, Edison was also a bit of an asshole when it came to his ideas. There’s a dead elephant that can attest to that. So, it was unfortunate for anyone wanting to make a movie that pretty much everything you’d need on set was tied into patents held by Edison. A man who, as we just mentioned, wasn’t particularly free with his intellectual property. He even managed to assemble the other patent-holders for anything not under his purview, creating a formidable enemy called the Motion Picture Patent Company (MPCC).

Basically, if you wanted to make a movie back then, you had better be doing it with the express consent of Edison et al. If you weren’t, you could expect quick action from the MPPC — in legal avenues as well as murkier ones. On the latter count, the MPPC was apparently known for hiring muscle to lock down offending movie sets. They also had control over distributors and local theaters, so even if you managed to thread the needle and actually produce a film, you might not be able to show it anywhere.

Sick and tired of all this, many filmmakers came up with a drastic solution, which was to fuck off entirely to California. A place where Edison, the MPPC and their goons had a lot less oversight, and a place where judges were a little less draconian about patents. It also had the simple benefit of physical distance in a time where NY-to-L.A. wasn’t a six-hour affair, in case they wanted to give someone a talking-to and/or roughing-up. In California, they found a much friendlier setting for their movie sets, and the location stuck.

Hooray for Hollywood!