DVD sales were strong, Netflix was still just a sad little envelope at the bottom of your mailbox, and China was starting to give studios the biggest safety net it ever had. It came with the added benefit of making the people in charge comfortable with the idea that cinema’s future wouldn’t look all that different from its past. That idea was inflexible, and supported by a century of precedent. Ten years ago, it seemed like we all had a pretty solid idea of movies - what they can do, who they’re for, and where they’re watched.
