Hollywood movies are getting objectively worse, and there's a good reason for it. The market is global now - the North American box office is just a vehicle for pricing deals when the international rights are sold.
So they have to make movies that appeal to the global lowest common denominator. No witty or understated dialog. No cultural signifiers that might be missed by someone from another culture.
All the money and effort is going into flashy stuff that someone in Beijing will appreciate just as much as someone in Los Angeles. Thus all the superhero garbage and Michael Bay style action.
We also act as if older movies are on whole universally and objectively better than they are now - which they're not - because of the lens of time, we don't remember the 20 stinkers released every year, only the big blockbuster movies that impressed everyone - as an infrequent movie goer - I'd say movies on whole, are about as good as they ever were.
Again, its the same lens of time, there were 2-3 times as many forgettable dramas, romantic comedies, historical pictures, and lets not even start on westerns - they're not even part of our collective memories anymore. Consider that in 1939, there were something like two movies a week released - and 1939 was a banner year for quality too in all honesty - but still only 2-3 have survived in popular memory, and only 10% of the total production was considered notable.
Chaplin was genius, so was Lloyd, so was Keton, they all produced moves of unbelievable quality, but how many of those three are known by people outside the film industry or film historians today?
> So they have to make movies that appeal to the global lowest common denominator
No, they think that they have to do this, but they are demonstrably wrong, as proven by e.g. the "surprise" success of a movie like "Get Out" (which is really excellent, BTW) which breaks all of those rules and makes a ton of money because people can still recognize a good movie even though Hollywood generally can't.
That movie illustrates my point, though. Domestic box office for Get Out was $175m with foreign receipts coming in at just $77m.
Compare that to Guardians of the Galaxy, with domestic box office of $333m and foreign box office of $440m. They made more money outside the US than in, with China topping the totals.
Sure, you can still make money with a movie aimed at the domestic audience, but you can make a lot more money with one that isn't.
Get Out is the exception that proves the rule. It is a smart low budget movie that had good box office numbers, but there are dozens of good movies released this year that will not generate anything like that revenue. How about Columbus, Step, The Big Sick... that's just relatively recent ones I can pick off the list, there are a lot more.
True, and it's a shame because a movie like Train to Busan is more engaging than World War Z or Marvel Civil War, but the latter will rack up more ticket sales. Most people don't care about substance or quality in the end.
So they have to make movies that appeal to the global lowest common denominator. No witty or understated dialog. No cultural signifiers that might be missed by someone from another culture.
All the money and effort is going into flashy stuff that someone in Beijing will appreciate just as much as someone in Los Angeles. Thus all the superhero garbage and Michael Bay style action.