Paul Schrader Wants Better Moviegoers, Says Audiences Don’t Take Films Seriously

You say audiences want to essentially just see fluff and not something cerebral

What I was trying to communicate is that most people want to see escapist material most of the time, not that all people want it all of the time. Some people like them more than others, some people like them more frequently than others. This means the potential audience is smaller at any given time.

the film makes needed to make their serious art films better

Nope; I said that a good movie doesn't mean a huge audience.

if no one is going to see these films what does it matter?

If 'no one' (which I'll define as 'insufficient to break even) sees your movie, you went to high on the budget for the target audience, you misjudged the size of the target audience, or it wasn't as good as you thought it was.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with creating something that only 100K people care to see... it might even be a spectacular work of art... but reality is that sometimes you have to work with a smaller budget because it will have limited appeal.

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