Under the studio system, producers were generally employees who “ran” the movie, although some created a more personal set of choices and films. Since the end of the studio era, executive producers have played an ever-more important role in envisioning and assembling the production of film or television, especially its financing. Together with the directors, they overlook the budgeting of production and post-production of the project while line-producers oversee shoots. Independent film producers are often brokers between the filmmakers and the distributors. The Producers Guild of America emerged in 1966 from the Screen Producers Guild (founded 1950) and the Television Producers Guild. In 2000 it has more than 1,500 members worldwide.

Certain producers have emerged as more distinctive figures in New Hollywood, especially blockbuster film-makers like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and James Cameron. Others, like James Schamus and Ted Hope (Ice Storm, 1997; Happiness, 1998) or Oliver Stone, who also writes and directs, are associated primarily with idependent films. Male and female actors also appear as producers in film and television series.

The image of producers in media is often negative, as in Robert Altman’s The Player (1992). Dustin Hoffman satirized government and media as a film producer asked to produce a “war” in the satirical Wag the Dog (1997).

Yet money is a real issue for films. While in many European countries, the government promotes some form of national cinema and television, in the US, government funding hardly exists for feature films. Producers must assemble a complex package of backing from studios and financial sources. Cable networks like HBO and Showtime have become major producers in the 1990s.