Those critics clamor for a return of mid-budget movies that are innovative and daring.
Those critics will pass away still clamoring for it. Because the factors that have led to the demise of those films were not audience desire, but the same factors that are destroying much of our landscape: consolidation of the industry; the rise of vulture capitalism and monopolies; the precipitous decline of screens in response to those two factors; and a risk averse economic model that puts “make billions” over “do something new and creative.” Like the youtube creator said, it’s similar to the 1960’s studio system. It took the death of that system to lead to the “golden” years of film of the 1970’s with its daring stories. That’s less likely to happen now.
