Hollywood might finally start making mid-budget movies again soon

polygon.com:

There’s a dim light at the end of the blockbuster-output tunnel. With smaller and medium-sized movies like Trap, Smile 2, Nosferatu, and Mickey 17 dominating conversations and studio presentations at this year’s CinemaCon, the expo for all things theatrical release, and similarly budgeted films continuing to show impressive gains at the box office, a question is in the air: Could the mid-budget movie make a comeback?

Hollywood’s current obsession with movies that cost north of $150 million and take up half the screens at multiplexes has a few different causes, but the easiest ones to point to all wear capes. After the breakout success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, studios focused on chasing Marvel’s formula, with big, expensive movies that aimed to earn a billion dollars or more at the box office. Blockbuster movies have been a critical part of the theatrical landscape since the term was coined in the 1950s, but the age of the billion-dollar box-office hit spawned a new blockbuster mania for studios, and particularly for ambitious studio executives. As tentpole movies increased in size, scope, and budget, they quickly started to squeeze out smaller projects.

Hollywood’s older model relied on a steady mix of blockbuster blowouts (“See Ben-Hur in glorious Cinemascope!”) and mid-sized movies, both to keep audiences interested and to keep budgets and profits sensible. Studios would build out their calendars with a few big blockbusters each year, plus a couple of smaller movies that might take big chances. But they stacked the majority of their calendars with projects in the mid-budget realm, movies that cost around $10 to $90 million to make (with a little wiggle room on either side), and usually involved at least one or two stars to get viewers in the door.

In the 2000s, those mid-budget slates included everything from rom-coms like 50 First Dates or Fever Pitch to prestige dramas like Michael Clayton, or dark dramas like No Country for Old Men. Mid-budget movies