Then came the internet.
Furthermore, the box office is struggling to recover from the pandemic. The mid-budget movie—the $30 million romantic comedy or thriller—has largely died in theaters. Those movies now live on streaming. The only movies that consistently get butts in seats are the "event" films: Marvel, DC, Top Gun, Avatar, and horror movies (which are cheap to make and profitable). The multiplex is becoming a museum of spectacle, while the living room is the theater for everything else. One of the most under-reported stories in entertainment content is the collapse of language barriers. Thanks to streaming and high-quality dubbing/subtitling, the United States is no longer the sole exporter of popular media.
We are living in the age of the creator economy. Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Spotify for Podcasts have turned entertainment into a two-way street. The audience is no longer passive; they are participants. They comment, they remix, they "stitch," and they demand authenticity.