What happened around 2006 is streaming. This caused DVD sales to tank, which had a massive effect on the film industry’s bottom line. DVD sales were a money printer and that cash allowed studios to take more risk. Once DVD sales started tanking the indie film divisions of major studios (like Fox Searchlight) started to die, which is a big reason that films became less interesting. Also, the shift to making money mostly off the box office rather than DVDs meant that a movie needed to make more money in its opening weekend, which meant needing to make tent pole movies that appealed to all ages and international markets. Imagine how hard it is to write a movie for all ages in all countries.