William Dickerson says

In a no-nonsense interview with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, Variety's editor Peter Bart said, "It's impossible to get an independent picture made at a major studio. The major studios want tentpole pictures that appeal to an international box office. 70 percent of that audience is overseas." Furthermore, his advice for indie filmmakers: "Find yourself a billionaire who would prefer to own a movie rather than owning a politician, because it's come to that."

Lawrence O'Donnell said, "The success of 'Jurassic World' may mean that movie studios have never valued original material less as they do now." Why would they, when box office numbers are that good? In the 1970's, their mindset was altogether different. Sequels were considered creative cesspools. Screenwriter William Goldman referred to sequels as "whores' movies." Now, sequels are the status quo—they're the norm—while original movies have become anomalies. The money is in franchises, which is, perhaps, why TV is thriving. Television shows are mini-franchises. They provide a seemingly endless well of material from which to bucket into viewers' homes season after season.

Hollywood leads the pack with respect to the film industry, yet other countries have taken the lead protecting cinema and funding the art form through government programs and grants. In 1984, France declared Henri-Georges Clouzot's film "The Mystery of Picasso" a national treasure, and David Cronenberg's films have routinely benefited from Canadian government funding—and David Cronenberg is not a mainstream filmmaker. Movies have, arguably, informed the American culture more than any other culture on the face of the planet, but are not held in as high esteem as other cultures. 

To quote one of my favorite professionals in this business, John Carpenter: "In France, I'm an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain, a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum."

By eliminating the middle class space of filmmaking, there's no viable way for filmmakers to practice their craft—unlike painting and literature, it takes a lot of money and a good deal of resources to make a movie, at least ones with competitive production value. For filmmakers, making movies is a privilege; for the world, it's an art form that's necessary. All we need to do is figure out a way to provide filmmakers with the adequate resources to tell those stories that absolutely need to be told, and allow them to make a living doing it. There must be a balance between art and commerce. If commerce overshadows the art, then the product is doomed from the start.