Why has Mediocre become Acceptable?

Furious 7, Iron Man 3, Minions and Transformers: Dark of the Moon have all made over 1 billion at the box office. More than The Dark Knight, Drive, The Wolf of Wall Street and Inside Out. How did it get this bad?

We have the power to dictate what studios release. We refused to watch Ghostbusters (2016) and no more will be made. Yet we never do this often. We all complain about the influx of terrible movies but we're the ones fueling studios to keep making them. Have we just accepted mediocre as normal?

With so many studios wanting to build their own universe, it has seemed that they want to rush an important step; quality. This is the same with us - we want different characters to cross-over in other movies that we accept that bad movies will happen in order for them to cross-over. "Who cares if Iron Man 2 was bad at least he'll be in Avengers" - Sound familiar?

The quality in which we as the audience accept a film has dramatically declined. As it seems the standard of a film no longer matters but instead it has come to who stars in the film or if it's a character we recognize that gets us to the cinema. I am no saint and often do that too. If it's a star I know then I'll probably watch that movie over an independent masterpiece with no one recognizable. This has fueled Hollywood to keep making these generic movies that have no personality. However, the studios are not the only ones to blame as it may also be down to everyone being over sensitive, leading to studios having to hit every demographic in order to make some money. But we can change that by opening our minds and allowing different ideas on the screen.

You cannot sensor art.

Art is expression and freedom and once you sensor that then we live in a world where free speech doesn't exist.

Our over sensitive minds means studios will cater to them. If a studio allows a risky move in their movies, you can guarantee backlash and boycotts from audiences which studios do not want. An example is The Interview, which had such a backlash that cinemas didn't play it and Sony got hacked. This has put fear in studios not wanting a similar situation which means they would rather make a generic movie than push the bar of creativity.

As the audience we have power. We have to stop buying tickets for the generic crap and demand something different. If we support more creative films (even bad ones to a degree) then studios will have to consider making more dynamic and inventive pieces of art. We shouldn't accept mediocre but instead films that push the medium to more imaginative places. But before we change the studios, we have to change ourselves.

Remember, If we don't change now, we are one step closer to a Citizen Kane remake. Think about that.