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Low budget made-for-tv films look better than 30 years ago.

With those budgets you can't hire top crew talent, and without A list cast you can't attract audience. So you will have a film that doesn't look like A budget film and you won't sell tickets. A list cast costs that much because they have brand value. With a product like that you're destined for TV and rental market. It exists and it works, but it can't fight in the same arena for viewer tickets.

There's also a feedback loop. New actors are introduced along established ones. That's how they become established themselves. And the cycle repeats. Doing a movie with whole unknown cast is extremely risky. Because you lose any brand value coming from actors. Two questions when considering watching a movie are: What is it about? Who's in it?