I’d argue it’s hard to find someone better equipped to deliver a “State of Cinema” talk than director Steven Soderbergh. Film Comment transcribed his entire talk for reading, There’s also a full SoundCloud embed file if you’d rather listen to Soderbergh’s audio. One of his quick asides on the major studios’ financial dominance was pretty scary:
In 2003, 455 films were released. 275 of those were independent, 180 were studio films. Last year 677 films were released. So you’re not imagining things, there are a lot of movies that open every weekend. 549 of those were independent, 128 were studio films. So, a 100% increase in independent films, and a 28% drop in studio films, and yet, 10 years ago: Studio market share 69%, last year 76%. You’ve got fewer studio movies now taking up a bigger piece of the pie and you’ve got twice as many independent films scrambling for a smaller piece of the pie. That’s hard. That’s really hard.