In the New York Equity Suit, the Paramount case defendants used many of the same arguments as before the war, pitching block booking and vertical integration as an economic necessity. Following the incredible war-time box office windfall, the Big Eight could no longer shelter their businesses practices behind the guise of industry hardship that had postponed previous government interaction during the Great Depression and early in World War II. The entire industry, lead by Paramount Pictures, was riding an unprecedented profit growth as theater attendance peaked to its all time record in 1946. The massive Paramount theater holdings, which had nearly brought the studio to ruin in the Depression, now allowed the company revenue to skyrocket. Paramount reported an unheard-of $39 million profit for the year 1945-46, more than twice that of the second place studio Twentieth Century-Fox.