The studio experienced some noteworthy success early on with Places in the Heart (1984), a star-studded family drama that featured the likes of Sally Field, Ed Harris, Danny Glover, and John Malkovich. Their first production was The Natural (1984), starring Robert Redford**. Many of TriStar’s early films banked on alternative distribution channels, such as VHS and television broadcast to recoup their upfront costs. It was a three-way venture started in 1982 that pooled the assets of Columbia Pictures, CBS, and HBO.
TriStar was the first new major studio since the founding of RKO in 1928. His success with The Learning Tree (1969) was a milestone that helped to validate the viability of Black-focused filmmaking to Hollywood, paving the way for the most productive decade of Black filmmaking in the United States: the '70s. He not only wrote the novel and script, but also scored the film, served as a producer, and oversaw every nearly every aspect of production. Parks handled the daunting task admirably, all while under constant studio supervision because of the color of his skin. Further expanding the possibilities of changing trends in industry practices, Warner Brothers became the first studio to hire a Black director, Gordon Parks, to helm a feature on a modest budget.
In relinquishing studio control to a newer generation of maverick artists, Hollywood began to realize much bigger returns on smaller budgets. America’s “New Hollywood” began to emerge in a recognizable way during the late 1960s, with films such as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Graduate (1967), and Easy Rider (1969).
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