It's like hollywood and their summer tentpole blockbusters. The need to make a huge movie that appeals worldwide discourages studios from straying from the most formulaic pattern available, because anything new is unlikely to have the same kind of broad appeal. Meanwhile, the huge budget (and high expected revenue) of those films makes the upside of making something better (because everyone's going to go see "Godzilla" or "Xmen" anyway.)
But people making lower budget films can take more risks, because if they do come up with a new type of hit they'll see huge returns.
I used to work on a site that covered the movie industries and one of our views was that fixed ticket prices were hurting the movie industry. A dumb, low-risk summer movie makes the same per viewer as an intelligent but niche film. Things would be a lot more interesting if some films targeted at smaller markets could charge $20 or more per ticket; and you might see declining returns on dumb tentpoles if they had to compete on price with each other (e.g. "How to die in the west" for $5 vs "Godzilla" for $15 ... ?)
But people making lower budget films can take more risks, because if they do come up with a new type of hit they'll see huge returns.
I used to work on a site that covered the movie industries and one of our views was that fixed ticket prices were hurting the movie industry. A dumb, low-risk summer movie makes the same per viewer as an intelligent but niche film. Things would be a lot more interesting if some films targeted at smaller markets could charge $20 or more per ticket; and you might see declining returns on dumb tentpoles if they had to compete on price with each other (e.g. "How to die in the west" for $5 vs "Godzilla" for $15 ... ?)