If you look at the movies showing in theaters back in the year 2000 and compared it to all the movies in theaters nowadays, it’d be a night-and-day comparison. By and large, studios and audiences have shoved out most standard dramas in favor of big-budget action spectacles. If it doesn’t have an explosion, changes are studios are looking to push that project to the small screen or to streaming platforms, for better or worse.

But why is that? Why has the landscape changed so much, and with the advent of streaming content, was it inevitable that this would happen? Personally, I’m of the opinion that that, yes, that is the case, but Wonder Woman 1984 director Jenkins has a solid argument against it.

“What happened to those genres to me, is not that people don’t want to see them in theaters. What happened is theaters only started carrying too limited of a palette,” Jenkins told Deadline‘s Crew Call Podcast, “What I’ve found since the mid-2000s is that every theater in America only shows the same five movies… If every cineplex is only playing the same five movies, how do they know that people want to watch dramas? Because you’re not putting them there now.”

From there, she points to studios looking for big returns that can only be expected from big I.P.s, and with that saw fewer and fewer standard dramas making their way into theaters, as a result of studios chasing the gravy train, so to speak. And, as proof of this, Jenkins pointed to TV, where dramas and comedies started to live, proving that audiences won’t stop watching these experiences.

RELATED – Wonder Woman 1984: Patty Jenkins On Why She Chose That Year For The Movie’s Setting

“I don’t believe people want to watch this stuff on television,” Jenkins summed up. “I believe they want to watch it in theaters, but no one is putting it there.”

It is a bit of a chicken or the egg question here. Perhaps Jenkins is right, but perhaps audiences’ willingness to see certain types of stories in theaters has also changed. In a world where we can see whatever we want whenever we want, I think big-budget spectacles are the true draw to your local theater. Conversely, as certain breakout hits like IT, Deadpool, and A Quiet Place have proven, story is ultimately king. If there is an amazing story to be told in theaters, regardless of its big-screen-viability, it has the potential to find an audience…maybe…

Where do you fall in this debate? Do you agree with her, or are you waffling back and forth on the subject like me? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Crew Call Podcast