[hannofcart]

> In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen. It’s a perilous time in film exhibition, and there are fewer independent theaters than ever.

I can't agree more with this. 5 years back I remember taking a chance with little known movies that was playing at the theatre near me, like Mr.Turner, watching it with my wife and walking out of the theatre completely moved by them. There is magic in that big screen format. But now all that runs at the theatres near me are one Marvel movie after another. They're not bad; but none of them are truly memorable. None of them leaves you with a sense of profundity that Scorsese or Clint Eastwood movie does.

[WorldMaker]

I think this is much more of the fault of rise of "infinite cable channels" and then streaming services (Netflix, et al) than the franchise films themselves. A lot of the contracts that the cable networks and streaming services have signed in the last decade or so have pushed a lot of independent cinema into cable/streaming, including "locking down" exclusivity on a lot of the classics that used to be free or cheap to small community theaters. For better and worse, the small independent cinema moved directly into people's homes. On the one hand it is more convenient, but on the other hand it is easy to lament the loss of the small community event gathering around a "lost" classic or enjoying a second or third class film together on a big screen.

It's also unfortunate in how losing those small community events snowballs. Franchise films are all that's left in most of the theater chains, because those can still be "big" community events that can compete with the convenience of people's homes. Getting people out of the house for a smaller event gets more challenging when folks don't do it regularly.