block booking
n.— «As Ladd explained in Blockbuster, Star Wars got into the theaters because of a now illegal practice called “block booking,” which involved studios essentially holding a big movie hostage in exchange for theaters agreeing to play one of the studio’s smaller films. Fox told theater owners if they wanted “The Other Side of Midnight,” a potboiler based on the Sidney Sheldon bestseller, they had to show this little movie “Star Wars” too.» —“Star Wars: A Box Office History Lesson” by David Konow Tom’s Games Aug. 13, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The slang phrase someone ate and left no crumbs means the person did something really well. In a previous call, a listener who works in theater noted the use of ate to mean “did something well,” as in they really ate that haircut! This...
Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse to the first page of those books that was supposed to keep thieves away — and some were as vicious as...