This article comes down a difference over the view of what constitutes a "good" film: * Studios: Economic -- low risk, popular, high profit * Writer, reviewers

This article comes down a difference over the view of what constitutes a "good" film: * Studios: Economic -- low risk, popular, high profit * Writer, reviewers: Aesthetic -- plot, visuals, acting The mass-market movie model just doesn't lend itself to making high quality product. It compliments high-marketability products - known franchises, sequels, etc. In movies, you do a big marketing campaign where you spend tens of millions of dollars before opening day, then hope the movie makes that back in its first two weeks. In television, with multi-week runs, you can hope to build audience, get good buzz, etc with a quality product that you didn't market a ton. See: The Wire, Mad Men, Sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc. The niche audience seeking quality will find the product. This is why we are seeing movies move towards huge, low-risk, low-intellect tentpole movies targeted at non-discerning teenagers, and increasing success of relatively intellectual, high quality, long-form television series that create massively loyal followings, lots of rewatching and good DVD sales for years. (And I'd argue it's a reversal of the 60s-70s, when you saw great, groundbreaking movies like Bonnie & Clyde while most of the TV stuff on networks was middle-of-the-road dreck.)