A timely investigation into the rise of Peak TV and the perfect storm that caused a rapid decline in Hollywood work
When Hollywood writers and actors went on strike in 2023, they drew attention to the rapidly changing nature of film and television production. In Boom to Bust, media industry experts Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller combine economic and cultural analysis and interviews with industry workers to capture the lived experience of Hollywood in crisis. Tracking major disruptions of the preceding decade—including the transformation of streaming services into studios, the overproduction of series during Peak TV, as well as #MeToo and COVID—the authors explain how the conflicting interests of studio executives, creative workers, and workers' unions compelled a renegotiation of the terms of work. Grounding readers in the history of Hollywood labor negotiations, the authors provide a road map to make sense of Hollywood’s present—and what comes next.
Miranda Banks is Professor of Film, Television, and Media Studies at Loyola Marymount University, author of The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild, and coeditor of Production Studies.
Kate Fortmueller is Associate Professor of Film and Media History at Georgia State University and author of Below the Stars: How the Labor of Working Actors and Extras Shapes Media Production and Hollywood Shutdown: Production, Distribution, and Exhibition in the Time of COVID.
"Boom to Bust is a clear-eyed, consummate examination of one of the most significant labor battles in recent American history—telling of why Hollywood writers and actors went on strike, what happened when they did, and where the entertainment industry has headed in the years since. This is required reading."—Gary Baum, senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter
"In Boom to Bust, Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller skillfully illustrate how the rise of global streamers transformed Hollywood's business practices, distribution strategies, and production methods—and, in turn, how these changes impacted the industry's creative laborers. Through lively, accessible prose, the authors chronicle the dark side of the Peak TV era of the 2010s and 2020s while highlighting how and why workers organized to fight back."—Alisa Perren, author of Indie, Inc.: Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s
"Banks and Fortmueller have set for themselves a Herculean task—to produce a history of a volatile industry present—and they pull it off with skill and style. For scholars of entertainment, Boom to Bust is an invaluable resource; for news junkies and movie buffs, an eye-opener. There just aren't enough books like this one."—Annie Berke, senior editor, Los Angeles Review of Books, and author of Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television
"With Boom to Bust, Banks and Fortmueller have given a gift to anyone who wants to understand the media industry's wild roller-coaster ride over the last fifteen years. In addition to detailing how streaming technologies and services prompted changes in Hollywood's traditional business practices, this book attends closely to the myriad challenges faced by media laborers during this period, resulting most dramatically in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023. The future may remain uncertain, but Boom to Bust tells us how we got here."—Daniel Herbert, author of Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American Film
320 pp.5.5 x 8.5Illus: 5 b/w figures, 1 table
9780520412873$95.00|£80.00Hardcover
Apr 2026