Money. Ruins. Everything.
Creativity means taking risks. Taking risks can affect the bottom line. If the bottom line is the most important thing, creativity and risk-taking both take a back seat.
Although, I know you're not a big fan of superhero movies to begin with, to me, they are far from the most significant problem. As a (ex) comic book aficianado, i remember a time when all I could watch from the comic world were a handful of superhero movies or animated TV series.
The genre was ripe for the picking once CGI became affordable. The early success of the Dark Knight trilogy, the first Spider-man trilogy and the first Marvel studio movies (IM & TIH) was bound to create a cookie-cutter industry that would milk the proverbial cow to the last drop.
Marvel Studios started the project to produce and self-finance their own movies in 2004 with a budget close to 500 million. As of today, the 20 movies they have produced in the 10 years since Iron Man and Incredible Hulk started the ball rolling, have grossed over 17 billion at the box office. It's staggering.
Success breeds comfort and complacency. As a fan I see the product getting thinned out, so I can imagine what it would be like for someone who's not into the genre.
Still, there are a few stories Im eager to see. There's still some good stuff to be done, because the comic book world is vast. Very vast.
My beef with Hollywood is more about the constant recycling of ideas, style and storytelling. It's formula-driven to such a high degree that it is incredibly predictable. The intense focus on aesthetics serves to gloss over the limitations and redundancy of the storytelling and also acts as titillation of our most basic instincts, catering to the highest number of people. This is hollywood as if Eddie Bernays was in charge. His ethos and ideologies taken to it's extreme to create one of the biggest profit machine the entertainment world has ever seen.
I miss the days when a movie would enthrall me, put me in a state of awe and wonder.
I read a lot. I love good stories, first and foremost. There are so many books out there, and among them, some really great stories to inspire the making of great movies.
Like Laurentide said, hollywood is just like Les Canadiens. They're all about making profit. Anything else is secondary.