Question is whether it used to be harder. The story you tell are all big operations requiring lots of cash to keep afloat. New studios can run at fairly low cost especially with the post production power we have today.
Is there any actual evidence of this? I'd be really eager to refute this, but I'd be more interested in learning it was true. Most "New Studios" I know fall into the exact same trap that their predecessors have fallen into because none of the major players in this new breed of studios are doing anything different. You can streamline things as much as you want but you still run into the same systemic issues that plague the whole industry.
Post production cost may be cheaper, but then you have to deal with distribution , marketing, PR, salaries for your cast ($20M per picture for a big movie star), crew, script, Etc.
And then you have to convince millions of moviegoers NOT to watch high budget competition such as Dark Knight Rising, Transformers, Twilight, Spiderman, etc.
Then you need to have something Millions of people want to watch this is the hard part :)
Sure you have to deal with those things, but the point was more that big studios have big cost and need high returns to be satisfied. (Everything from property, salaries to paying star actors)
Small studios don't need as high a return.
This is in many ways a Clayton Christensen (The Innovators Dilemma) opportunity.
Producing high quality movies as ultimately a question of people and skills. There are plenty of both that can't get work anywhere else.
I don't understand why I would have to convince people to not watch those movies? They are still being sold today and people are still watching non-hollywood movies.
If it becomes impossible to be profitable with big productions then hollywood will kill itself soon enough.