A few months ago, the movie podcast the Big Picture did a thought experiment – if you were the head of a movie studio, what creative decisions would you make, in a blue ocean world, to walk the delicate balance of art and commerce? In order to answer this question, the two hosts drafted from a series of categories to design a studio that was respectable but also made money.
Each host drafted the following: 
* 3 directors
* 5 movie stars (for 3 pictures each)
* 3 literary properties to be made into movies
* 2 screenwriters
* 1 franchise to build upon
* 1 classic film for the studio library
* 1 wild card creative
There were some other categories as well but those were less interesting. This exercise got me thinking. What would I do in this situation? Would I go the route of the ultra-commercial or would I go a more refined indie route? Would I try to be Disney or A24? I should say before I get started, I only listened to the first couple of picks from the co-hosts and then stopped because I wanted to remain untainted by their choices.
Without further ado,  here’s what I would pick from the above categories and why –
3 directors – Assuming that I have all three directors under contract for three movies (similar to the movie stars), I would pick…
Christopher Nolan, Joseph Kosinski, and Ti West. 
Most people have heard of Christopher Nolan. In fact, I’d argue, other than maybe Tarantino, Nolan is the most well-known director who is under the age of 65 working today in Hollywood. The fact that last summer, he took what could have been an incredibly long and boring story about a nuclear physicist and made a movie that was A). interesting (and didn’t feel nearly as long as its actual runtime), B). made nearly a billion dollars, and C). probably the biggest Oscar lock for Best Picture I can think of in the last 20 years is a testament to his ability to please both audiences and critics that is currently unmatched in Hollywood. Of the choices on this list, it’s probably the biggest no brainer.
Joseph Kosinski is a much more obscure name. He has made a career in Hollywood handling big budget pictures, some of which have made a ton of money (Top Gun Maverick), some a little money (Tron Legacy), and some that have lost money (Only the Brave). With such a checkered record, why pick this dude? There are a few reasons. Top Gun Maverick is probably the best block buster experience I’ve had in a movie theater since Kill Bill 1. Tom Cruise’s charisma is a big part of this (more on that later) but it’s also expertly crafted, from the sound design to the camera shots and, probably most importantly, the editing choices. I’m giving the credit for this to Kosinki. He has also directed several actors multiple times (Cruise included) so he has something of a mini-troupe of stars to call upon. He recently received a story by credit for Twisters – which is likely to hit half a billion in total box office by the time it leaves theaters.
He's versatile – He did a music video for Lady Gaga and several commercials, mostly for video games. He is also credited with directing a short film using a brand-new digital camera from Sony as a kind of tech demo that could have been directed by the Safdie Brothers or Michael Mann. 
I see him as a director more in tune with where Hollywood is going – comfortable with technology, recognizing the importance of video games in culture, and someone with a deep rolodex of both young, up and coming stars and tried and true veterans. 
Ti West is a horror director and has been directing movies for over 15 years. He’s recently wrapped up the X Trilogy, the first two installments made something like 10X their budget at the box office, which I’m hoping will lead to him being able to showcase what he could possibly do with something closer to a mid-budget (30-40M) film. He has also worked in different subgenres of horror including found footage (with the V/H/S films, which are some of my favorite recent horror movies) and occult (House of the Devil, which is still my favorite of his movies). He’s someone with a track record who can work on relatively small budget movies and make them, at the very least, releasable. To borrow a metaphor from former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, in my strategy, Ti West is my batter who is able to consistently hit singles, with Kosinski and Nolan aiming for the fences after West gets runners on base. I would not put the studio in his hands but I think he is on the precipice of possibly doing really remarkable things and moving, let’s stick with the baseball metaphors, from the minor league into the majors. He’s also only 43, so establishing a relationship with a young up and comer could be great for the long-term health of the studio. Welcome to the show Ti West.
For the movie stars, I have Tom Cruise, Jacob Tremblay, Margot Robbie, Anthony Ramos and…Taylor Swift.
With Kosinski on board, TC would make whatever he wanted to make – blank check – for the next 3 movies. I still think he is the biggest movie star in the world and one of the few actors who is currently holding down a reliable live action franchise. In a business that doesn’t know anything, the pair here could make whatever they wanted and it would probably make boffo box office. My pitch would be to work with EA to build a Wing Commander franchise – basically just taking the name and making Avatar meets Top Gun. I don’t believe there is a reboot option for this exercise but, if there was, this would be my pick. 
Tremblay is not a household name. I was really impressed when I saw him in Doctor Sleep, as a frightened child who is murdered. This is after he broke out in Room. I didn’t love the Seth Rogen for tweens Good Boys, but he solidly held it down in that movie, showing pretty decent comedic timing. He’s done voice work in Luca and the Little Mermaid reboot. He’s got range. He’s 17 now and I think he is at the position, similar to Ti West, where his career could go in a few different directions. I’m not sure where I’d slot him but we’re investing in talent here and I think he will bring it to whatever project he’s cast in. I think the two of them, West and Tremblay, could do something in a horror subgenre West hasn’t touched on yet. I could also see him doing more comedies or dramas. There’s still time for him to become a leading man and I think he’s got the qualities to get there. 
Margot Robbie – What else is there to say? She’s probably, at this point, post-Barbie, at the height of her powers and can do anything she wants to do. I would, similar to Cruise, greenlight whatever she wanted and hope that the audience follows. If she wants to make more character-driven movies, similar to I, Tonya, she has enough clout to get them off the ground and bring people into theaters to see them and she is talented enough as an actress to, if everything else works in the movie, get nominations. I also plan on pairing her with one of my screenwriters to ensure that whatever she makes is top tier. 
The next pick is probably the most controversial on this list. Anthony Ramos – he’s in his early thirties but has already done a ton of stuff, including acting in movies, television, on broadway, singing, voice overs – he’s all over the place. If he can do it all, why the controversy of putting him on this list? I don’t know if he’s a movie star. The biggest role he’s had is probably the lead of In the Heights – and that movie bombed. He’s split his time pretty evenly between theatre, TV, and movies, which, at this point in his career, feels like he’s hedging his bets. That being said, I think Hollywood wants him to be a star. Maybe he just hasn’t found the right project – I think he was miscast in Twisters and the plotline he was given didn’t do a great job of highlighting his strengths. However, I think I may have the perfect role for him. More on that later.
Finally, Taylor Swift. Presuming this kicks off right now I think I can film a few movies with T Swift while she’s close to the height of her popularity and jump on that bandwagon while it’s still got some miles left on it. If the actor picks were for a career, I’d pick someone else but, at just three movies, I think I can find a few roles that will allow Taylor to safely say that she’s done it – she’s conquered Hollywood, her white whale. After her role in Cats, it’s only up from here. 
Now for the literary properties. 
Luna: New Moon is a series by Ian McDonald that can best be described as Game of Thrones meets The Fast and the Furious meets Last Stage Capitalism….in Space! Also, there are werewolves. I think with the right cast this series, which could probably be five or six movies, would be a huge hit. No matter what, at least it will memeable.
For the other two properties, I’m going with my heart not my brain (or wallet). Bonfire of the Vanities is, in my opinion, the Great American Novel of the last half of the 20th century – a Great Gatsby for the Greed is Good era. The adaptation by Brian DePalma is awful. I feel bad for saying this now after he’s had a major medical issue but I’ve never liked Bruce Willis as an actor. Even with that said, this movie is so bad that he’s not in the top ten things wrong with it. Tonally, DePalma doesn’t know what he’s doing and the things that DePalma does well – Hitchcockian thrillers – don’t work here. The difficulty of pulling this adaptation off has scared suitors away for years, with rumors of making it into a mini-series popping up, every now and then followed by long silences. Wolfe’s novel deserves better than this. I have no idea who would be best to helm a remake – I have a much longer list of who shouldn’t try it than people who should and the ones I think could pull it off, I believe would miss half the story – the book is both funny and serious, an indictment on people and their desires as much as on capitalism. It may be the studio’s white whale but I would like to see, before I die - a good filmed version of this story.
My final pick would be Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth. It’s one of my favorite books of the last 10 years. It would be the studio’s most naked attempt for awards, which, under my guidance, would not be our primary goal. If done well, I think it could be really special, awards or no.
Honorable mention – Vurt by Jeff Noon. It’s been a while since I read it but, if memory serves, Vurt is about a group of English teenagers in a vaguely dystopic future ingesting psychotropic feathers that allow them to enter into a shared dreamlike world that is being controlled by evil corporations – If Ready Player One, which has striking similarities to this book, had done better, I would have picked this up. I still think it would be cool to see a big screen adaptation some day but the book I’m picking to make me money would, IMO, be much more easily franchisable than Vurt; the books that I picked with my heart were better books but Vurt is a book that deserves more love than it gets. 
For screenwriters, I need people able to write blockbusters – I’m going to cheat a bit and assume that I get a free Jonathan Nolan with my Christopher Nolan pick. With my other two picks I’m getting David Koepp, who is not a household name, and Greta Gerwig, who is. Koepp is incredibly prolific, with credits on Jurassic Park, the first Spider Man movie, Panic Room, and Tom Cruise’s The Mummy remake (which was better than people remember). He also, like Gerwig, has experience as a director – though I’d mostly rely on him to pound out blockbuster scripts quickly. 
Greta Gerwig has been nominated for Best Picture for movies she wrote and directed three times in the last seven years. She’s one of the hottest directors and writers in Hollywood. I’m going to attach her to Margot Robbie, who she has worked with before, and watch the money pile up. She’s adapted works for screenplays and done original screenplays and, while never winning, been nominated for Oscars for both. She co-wrote Barbie, which made over a billion dollars. She’s got the midas touch. 
You may be asking yourself – you seem high on Gerwig – why didn’t you pick her as one of your directors? 
Two reasons – 1). I would then have to resign myself to seeing Timothy Chalamet in movies every few years and 2). She’s not as prolific as Ti West and I need someone to put something out at least annually, if not, twice a year. I don’t think that she’s interested in being that person – her movies seem to be very personal and take a relativity long time to make. I am interested to see what she does with the live-action Snow White – the Disney live action movies have averaged out to just around terrible since they started making these abominations about ten years ago. Will she be able to give this old story some new blood and this franchise some excitement? We shall see. 
One franchise to build upon. There were really only two choices here. This is, for me, another heart versus brain decision. In the end, the brain wins this one. 
If I could take any franchise to relaunch it would be Harry Potter. Why? There are 8 Harry Potter movies in the main series that have averaged nearly a billion dollars at the box office. That’s not counting the 3 movies in the spinoff universe. The first movie is nearly 25 years old. The series, if done well, would be a gold mine – a bonanza. It would kick off not only box office returns but, almost certainly, tons of ancillary revenues for years. Yes, there’s a TV show in the works and yes, the creator is known to be…um…problematic BUT, assuming everything worked out, this is really a no brainer. 
The only other option was, of course, Star Wars, which as an older millennial will always be something I love about a hundred times more than HP – to be fair, I read the first Harry Potter book for a banned books class in college. It really wasn’t very good. I’m sure that if I read it as a kid, I would have reveled in it as so many others have but I didn’t find the story at the right time to really make a difference in my life.
So why not Star Wars? I think there are a few considerations here. Firstly, the fandom is split into thirds – the original series fans, the prequel fans, and the new series fans, with each third feeling territorial over what the “real Star Wars” is and means. Secondly, after Lucas sold the Star Wars franchise there was a new hope (oh boy) and optimism for new Star Wars that wasn’t indebted to the original trilogy or prequels. Then the movies came out and…there was a complete and utter indebtedness to the original trilogy. The optimism was soon gone and the television shows, while having some bright spots, have largely been seen, by the media writ large, as disappointments. Add to this, questions about the well running dry after 50 years of stories being told (and re-told) in this universe and you begin to wonder if Star Wars is going to be around in 20 years. 
Harry Potter, while not a clean slate, doesn’t have to deal with multiple generations of fans and their expectations. It really has a single generation having grown up with the films and books. If you remake the series, there will be a second generation but that’s it. The obstacle would be Rowling but, given this thought experiment, a What If style series of possible stories in the universe would also be a really neat way to pull in old fans and new ones. Also, people change with time and maybe, just maybe, a Star Wars-esque buyout would not be the worst way for creator and creation to part ways. 
I’m not sure if this is allowed in the rules of the original game but I’m going to twist the idea for the classic film and use it instead to make a reboot of a classic film, though classic should probably be in quotes here. For my reboot here, I’m going all the way back to that magical year of cinema, 1997, and going to reboot, say it with me all together now, the romantic comedy Fools Rush In. You may be asking the question, god, why oh why god why? 
The reasons - it would be the perfect vehicle for two of my stars, Anthony Ramos and Taylor Swift. They’re both trained musicians. You could make that a plot point. You could do a gender swap of the original characters with Ramos, who is partially Puerto Rican, having an overbearing mother (played here by Selma Hayek, who was the lead in the original) trying to accept her son’s love for Swift, while both try to transcend the cultural differences between them. The movie writes itself. Hilarity (and love) ensues! I also think we could bring back original director Andy Tennant and give a shout out – in the most respectful way possible – to the recently departed Matthew Perry. I’m not sure what an appropriate tribute would be but it would be a nice touch.   
My final pick, the wild card creative, is a name that many people have probably not heard about or thought about often when thinking about movies but may be single handedly the most important person in Hollywood over the last 15 to 20 years – Sarah Halley Finn. 
Most of the movies that I’ve outlined so far have the opportunity to become franchises – especially Harry Potter. Casting is vital to the success of these movies – the chemistry between actors and how they appear on screen is as much art as science. Sarah Finn has been the casting director for the MCU – the most successful franchise of all time. When thinking how an ensemble fits together and whom to place with whom, she’s second to none.
Before we move on – I think my picks are, for the most part, mainstream and are conventional wisdom choices. The ones that aren’t – mostly the directors and T Swift – I’ll give a little more background to. 
When thinking about directors I considered age, pedigree of the movies to my personal taste, how frequently they work, and their box office performances. I also considered whether or not I think their best days are behind them and the likelihood they will work in the future. 
If I was going for a combination of cool, pedigree, taste, and box office, I would probably pick Quentin Tarantino or Spielberg. Spielberg has entered into the Roma phase of his career and when you start making semi-autobiographical movies about your childhood, and you’re not Wes Anderson, it’s usually a good sign that your best days are behind you. Plus, he’s 77. Not to be morbid but I don’t know if he will be making 3 more movies in his career. Tarantino has said that he has one more movie left and is then going to retire. Picking either of them then, would be, possibly leaving money on the table. 
There are two other crops of directors I thought about but ultimately decided against – 
Peele, Eggers, and Aster and Del Toro, Inarritu, and Cuaron. The A24 Horror Guys and the 3 Amigos.
Briefly, here is why I passed on each of them. 
Peele – I believe Peele has peaked and I thought it was with Us. He is an auteur and this does not fit into my diversification strategy. I also thought Nope was kind of a mess and was baffled by the amount of praise it received. I think Peele is at something of a crossroads – he could become M. Night Shamalyan, an auteur with a spotty record who surprises audiences every few years with something great but mostly makes interesting misses or he could begin working with other screenwriters and be less singular in his vision but also be more consistent in the quality of his movies. Either way, I haven’t loved anything he’s made and it would be hard for me to pick him for one of my three picks.
Eggers – I believe Eggers has also peaked. The Northman was kind of a mess and should have been a really interesting fun movie but became as enjoyable as a Geometry test (and this is in a movie where two men have a sword fight inside of an active volcano). It’s a gorgeous movie to look at and it’ll be interesting to see what he does next but I was pretty let down. The Witch is still the best thing he’s done. Like Peele, it will be interesting to see where he goes from here – The Northman struggled at the box office and may have (possibly?) broken even only after PVOD hits big for it. Will another studio give Eggers 70M to make more movies after this or will he have to go smaller again?
Aster – You guessed it – peaked.  Of this crop of directors and the 9 movies they’ve made, Hereditary is the best. However, both Midsommar and the first half of Beau is afraid were misses for me and I’m a lot less interested to see what Aster makes after them. 
The Three Amigos – real quick – Del Toro and Ińárritu have made movies that I’ve liked and movies that I’ve hated but nothing that I’ve truly loved – the closest is probably Pan’s Labyrinth, which didn’t hold up the second time I watched it. Cuaron made Children of Men, which is my favorite movie of any of these directors. He doesn’t work frequently enough to be one of my directors, however; he also has entered the Roma phase (see above) which is almost always a bad sign when considering future output. 
Why pick Taylor Swift? Taylor Swift is the most famous media personality making content right now. She’s as likely as anyone to put butts in seats. If this was a lifetime contract, I would probably have also considered Denzel Washington – someone who is a great actor and whose movies consistently make money – or Scarlet Johanson – the highest grossing movie star over the last 20 years. Because we’re talking about 3 movies, the heat factor with Swift would probably be high enough to make all three pictures very successful.  
So would my movie studio, Elegant Pictures, succeed? Probably not. The picture business isn’t what it used to be. More after the break. 
In her 2013 book Sleepless in Hollywood, producer Lynda Obst bemoans the shift in Hollywood from genres like adult dramas and romantic comedies to largely IP-driven action movies. Obst describes the four types of quadrants or target audiences as different types of pies – Mud Pies (young men, aged 18 to 24), Berry Pies (girls of the same age range), Pecan Pies (men over 24), and Apple Pies (Women over 24). A four-quadrant movie would have pull with all four audiences. During the time that Obst is writing about, from roughly the mid-80s to the mid-aughts, a shift occurred where a film’s box office was increasingly driven by international audiences.
To use two examples, Top Gun 2 and Avatar 2, the percentage of total box office from outside the US was around 50% and 70%, respectively.  Mission Impossible II, released in the year 2000, had a similar box office split to Avatar. 
In order for a movie to be a huge hit, it’s very helpful to have “pre-awareness” meaning a movie is either based on a pre-existing property (book, TV show, video game, etc) or a sequel to a previous movie. Obst calls this “the enemy of originality”. Why? In a YouTube video reading from her book, she retells a story about examining the box office returns for the Ice Age series of movies with a studio head – the increases, of each subsequent movie, were modest domestically but giant internationally. She ends the story by saying that this meant they would “make Ice Ages forever”.
The genre that Obst was known for producing, romantic comedies, rarely have sequels – part of the charm of a romantic comedy is the idea that once a couple overcomes the complications of their early days together, they will live happily ever after. This is a baked in promise to the audience of most romcoms.
Because almost all stories are based around conflict, a sequel to a romantic comedy, by its essence, throws into disarray the promise of the first film. I’m not saying a romantic comedy sequel could not be successful (the Bridget Jones series comes to mind) but it’s not going to sell as easily as, say, Terminator 2. 
Romantic comedies also suffer from the quadrant problem mentioned earlier – like westerns, which have also suffered significantly in recent decades, they tend to not attract filmgoers from each quadrant equally. In addition, romantic comedies tend to live and die based upon their stars – it’s a genre that, apart from some rare exceptions, requires stars to drive audience goers, which makes them more expensive than, say, dramas that rely more on a concept than star wattage. 
A genre that is typically high concept and low cost – horror – continues to perform well.  
The requirements for romantic comedies – stars and the need for a kind of formula in order to be successful – aren’t as true for horror, which tends to allow for more freedom in terms of subject matter and budget. While romantic comedies naturally pair with musicals, horror can pair with nearly everything from science fiction (Alien), Thriller (Silence of the Lambs, Get Out), Fantasy (Pan’s Labyrinth), and even comedy (Cabin in the Woods). The flavors of horror – psychological, body horror, monsters, big budget, indie – give the genre room to tell a variety of stories which continuously breathes new life in a genre that would otherwise grow stale quickly.
Each culture has their version of horror – Italy, South Korea, Japan, and the US all have very, very different tastes when it comes to horror and these may not travel particularly well internationally. This also means, however, that horror fans have a buffet to choose from and this tends to deepen their appreciation for the genre.
Horror movies, like other niches - heavy metal, comic books, and anime - instill a fierce loyalty that lasts past adolescent and has secondary markets (festivals, conventions) where fans can buy, sell, and trade memorabilia and media. This happens in some respects with romantic comedies (there is an annual Jane Austen festival in England, for example) but to a much, much smaller degree. This loyalty keeps people going to the theaters, where the communal experience of seeing a movie with strangers, and being scared together in the dark, is not replicable at home. 
So, if we believe that horror is the cockroach of genres, likely to survive even a nuclear holocaust, what about the rest of the genres?
Obst quotes Peter Chernin, as he talked about the movie business, “the historical studio business, if you put all the studios together, runs at about a ten percent profit margin…The DVD business represented fifty percent of their profits…Fifty percent. The decline of that business means their entire profit could come down between forty and fifty percent for new movies.”
The physical media market has been declining for years – From a 2019 article from CNBC article entitled, The Death of the DVD: Why sales dropped more than 86% in 13 years, “At its peak, DVD sales reached $16.3 billion and were 64% of the U.S. home video market. That was 2005. These days, DVD sales account for less than 10% of the total market, with total sales hitting $2.2 billion in 2018. Blu-Ray discs, which have always been slightly more expensive than DVDs, launched in 2006. At most, Blu-Ray sales reached $2.37 billion in 2013, before falling to $1.8 billion in 2018. It’s likely that Blu-Ray sales fractionally impacted the decline of DVD sales, but the fact that DVD sales still outpace Blu-Ray sales shows it’s not the real culprit. Instead, a combination of the Great Recession, a rise in customers buying on-demand and digital copies of films and the launch of streaming services is what has caused DVD sales to decline more than 86% in the last 13 years.”
This trend has continued in the last five years since this article was written with major retailers like Target and Best Buy declining to sell all but the newest titles starting this year. 
If the music business has taught us anything, it’s that when you take a high-margin, physical product and substitute it for a lower margin digital product, you bleed money. Unfortunately, unlike music, the movie business really has no live equivalent to float artists between projects. 
Are there possible silver linings? Well, sure. It’s possible that a new format is right around the corner that will, like DVDs and CDs before them, be a shot in the arm for an industry that desperately needs the money. 4K Blu-Ray may be that format but, IMO, it’s unlikely. Why? Apart from some shoddy remastering of classic records from the 1960s and 1970s, CD quality, for most people, is preferred to analog records. Combine that with the convenience of playing them in your car stereo (something you couldn’t do with vinyl records) and CDs were an easy sell to most American consumers. Ditto with DVDs and VHS tapes – if you project a DVD and a VHS onto a wall, the DVD will, in almost every case, produce a sharper image. You also had, with the advent of DVDs, bonus features that were an extra selling point to the format that people really enjoyed. What I’m saying is that the low hanging fruit that was a clear improvement in quality, a leap forward, was already done when we went from analog to digital. To continue with a comparison, let’s look at a failed (and short-lived) attempt by the record companies to keep the CD gravy train a’rollin: SACD or Super Audio CDs. 
Per its Wikipedia page: “The Super Audio CD format was introduced in 1999…SACD did not achieve the level of growth that compact discs enjoyed in the 1980s, and was not accepted by the mainstream market. By 2007, SACD had failed to make a significant impact in the marketplace; consumers were increasingly downloading low-resolution music files over the internet rather than buying music on physical disc formats. A small and niche market for SACD has remained, serving the audiophile community.”
I believe that any future forms of physical media will be in similar boats to SACDs – they will be a collector’s format only used to purchase a few favorite movies, not entire collections the way that people did with DVDs and (previously) VHS. 
We have entered the world of diminishing returns where the cost and inconvenience of physical media (choosing a player, storing the physical copy) outweigh the benefits for many people. 
I also think it’s important to realize that the Blu Ray format is nearly 20 years old. If a standard is going to replace it, the most likely place for this technology to enter the lives of consumers is through video game consoles, which are moving away from physical formats. Per a recent Forbes article, “Digital game purchases accounted for over 70% of all game sales in 2022”. If consumers have to purchase a new player, to replace the older format for physical media, they will be much more cost conscious than if they received what they saw as a “bonus” when buying their video game console. 
So, what is the movie business to do?
Movie theaters are, of course, downstream from the movie studios – they are dependent on the studios to make the movies that best maximize revenues for both parties. Is the problem, ultimately, as simple as making better movies, movies that will bring in consistent audiences? 
If anything, this is likely to become more, not less, difficult as time goes by. The death of Redbox (which I mentioned in last week’s podcast) signals that a large enough number of people have switched to streaming services for their entertainment to not make a kiosk business lucrative. This dovetails with the decrease in physical media sales. People seem to be choosing to stay at home.
Theaters could make a comeback, less to do with their business acumen and inviting atmospheres and more to do with them being at the right place - what am I talking about? Third places - places that are not home or work have been identified as important to repairing the fraying social fabric. If there is a society wide realization of the need for these types of businesses, movie theaters could see a boost. That is, if consumers, see value.
Movie theaters have to do a better job of treating their customers as customers. In a world that is bifurcating between free content (with ads) and premium content (without ads), movie theaters, along with cable, still try to do both. Younger audiences, those that have grown up with this dichotomy, may question why the experience of going to the movies costs as much as it does while forcing its consumers to sit through twenty minutes of trailers after sitting through ten minutes of Coca-Cola and car ads. 
Given the plethora of entertainment choices that people have today (and the possibility of them getting even more numerous in years to come) are movies on a death spiral? Of course not. 
Per Box Office Mojo, domestic box office revenue has been decreasing, per movie, on average, since the late 1990s. 
They still do incredible numbers overseas and generate millions of dollars in ancillary revenue each year. Movies aren’t dying. Movie theaters may have to change in order to remain competitive – but so does every other business threatened by changing tastes and technology. 
My studio – Elegant Ramblings – would focus on making big pictures for a broad audience. I think it’s important to do so in order to draw the biggest audience possible – it’s a business, after all. 
Thank you for listening to this episode of Elegant Ramblings. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard, please consider liking and subscribing to the channel on iTunes or YouTube. You’ll be able to find show notes there. Hope you enjoyed. Bye for now.