Charting the different eras of Hollywood is fascinating. When we assess the cultural zeitgeist against specific eras of Hollywood, it becomes easy to understand how each epoch of American filmmaking came to be. It's no coincidence that a decade after the birth of the hippie counterculture of the 1960s, the 1970s spawned the experimental auteur era. Similarly, the indie film boom that occurred in the 90s perfectly coincides with how accessible cameras became for millions of Americans.
Although we haven't arrived at a definitive title for the modern era of Hollywood, I like to call it the "IP era." With the emergence of streaming services and the proliferation of entertainment apps designed to appeal to a specific niche, Hollywood is currently locked in a series of endless battles to control the rights to every bankable intellectual property in existence.
Consequently, despite being shunned by the masses for decades, high-fantasy stories have become cool. I mean, they just made a Dungeons & Dragons movie that performed incredibly well at the box office. High fantasy is hip. In the video linked above, you can check out a hilarious YouTube video that breaks the entire maxi-genre into two divergent subgenres.
