Why is the entertainment industry centered in Southern California? It wasn't always the case. In fact, the original center of filmmaking was in New Jersey. After all, that's where the inventor of the first film camera lived- Thomas Edison.
Despite his legendary reputation, however, Edison was a bit of a greedy jerk. He didn't want to sell his cameras outright. He wanted to lease them, collecting a royalty for each film production that used one of his cameras. This made most filmmaking unprofitable. The early film studios, faced with extinction, decided to go as far away from New Jersey (and Edison's patents) as possible while still staying in the United States. That ended up being Southern California, whose temperate weather was just icing on the cake.
