Independent movies don’t have to be block busters to ruin the studios. All they need to be is marginally successful. Already 10% of Sundance is Kickstarter funded movies. Imagine 10 years from now, when large numbers of movies are done by online funding through sites like Kickstarter.

Very soon  technology will make it possible for anyone to make a good movie by drop, drag, and click editing.  Cell phones and tablets will have access to every filter and transition possible, for little or no cost. Since every 18 months the same dollar buys double the computing power, cellphones and tablets will soon have the power to do real time CGI.  This will allow people to create what ever content they can conceive of with little or no cost, except an investment in time.

This year at CES, we saw the beginnings of augmented reality on cell phones and tablets. Very soon we will see the ability to do real time virtual sets, and replace everything around a person with computer generated imagery. Once that happens the TV and movie studios have nothing going for them. Spending $100 million dollars on a movie will never be profitable, especially when competing with smaller more nimble competitors. They will be up against thousands of productions with better plot lines, less repetition of the same themes, and more targeted genres. The future of the studios does not look very bright.