One doesn't succeed in this marketplace of ideas and entertainment by being simplistic and going for the greatest common denominator, but by finding your niche, exploiting it, and celebrating whatever you have that is fresh and different from everyone else. Seen from that angle, the fact that the Hollywood movie machine, in its relentless quest to maximize profits, is dumbing down so as to extricate the greatest profit from the greatest number, is just another signal of the long-term irrelevance and ultimate failure of a business model whose moment in the sun will soon be over.
The future of entertainment is in the Long Tail--appealing to a niche with thoughtful, provocative entertainment value. On occasion something will catch the eye of the masses and become a blockbuster hit. That's how it used to be. But the focus on the blockbuster has declined as a viable business model because the blockbusters became more about their hype than about their quality. With the growth of distribution of content over the Web, and the economies of scale now available in Web distribution, the Long Tail model will not only continue to make sense for distribution, but also for creation.
This isn't good news for the people who make millions promoting movies like "Spiderman 3" and other filth that passes for entertainment these days, but good riddance to traditional marketing agencies. Go get a real job.
"Low budget" will not longer be an epithet, but a badge of honor, and the new form of blockbuster--the one that naturally arises from genuine quality and popularity, will take hold. Few and far between, but truly enriching--like The Iliad and the Odyssey of old.
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