ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the example of the motion picture industry. It demonstrates the major significance of a powerful global distribution system for the development and continued existence of the world's most important movie cluster in Hollywood. The chapter examines the dominance of movies from Hollywood on the world market, and the connections to the German market are analysed as a case study providing an empirical perspective on the global commodity chain of motion picture distribution. The powerful oligopoly of the world's largest media companies, together with their international subsidiaries, dominate the world market, and it is within the organisational structures of these large media corporations that the distribution of movies, so important for cluster development in Hollywood, takes place. The entertainment and media industry, publishing and printing, and advertising, are branches of the cultural industries that have experienced above-average economic growth and have generated increasing numbers of jobs.
