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The rise of the pop oligarchy
experimentalhistory.substack.com
Until the year 2000, about 25% of top-grossing films were “prequels, sequels, spin-offs, remakes, reboots or cinematic universe expansions”, says Adam Mastroianni. Since 2010, it’s been more than 50% every year. In recent years, it’s been close to 100%. The top-20 films captured about 40% of all revenue since the 1980s; from 2015 they have been “gobbling up” even more.
Various explanations for this have been advanced, but all miss that this isn’t just happening in film. In “every corner of pop culture” – TV, music, books, video games – a “smaller and smaller cartel of
