Finally have time to respond to this.

I'm definitely not going to argue that film studios aren't risk-averse, or that we're being inundated with poorly-conceived remakes and sequels. What I am arguing against is:

1) Harris's tired and lazy dismissal of animation and comic book movies.
The rest of us had already stopped fighting that battle once Toy Story 2 and X-Men 2 came out, much less Up and The Dark Knight. You're right that his "oh yeah, Pixar. And Dark Knight, I guess" is a half-hearted afterthought. But I object to how he keeps pounding that idea over and over again: comic book movies are the death of Hollywood. Even though his darling movie Inception would never have happened without The Dark Knight. Anybody with a lick of sense realizes that talent is more important than source material: it's been proven that good filmmakers can make great movies out of comic books or animation or sequels, time and time again. Harris's refusal to acknowledge that makes it impossible for me to take anything else he says seriously.

2) The idea that this is "the death of Hollywood." It's Hollywood figuring out its available channels, just as it has several times over (like for instance the first time television "killed" the film industry). He acknowledges HBO's original series and AMC's out-of-nowhere successes with "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," but he still keeps pounding on the idea that Hollywood is dying. Because, somehow, of Top Gun. But that's the point I'm trying to make in this post: a theatrical release, and the huge marketing budget that it requires, demands a certain level of spectacle. The Adjustment Bureau, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and even Inception are all improved by seeing them in a theater. The "Adult Dramas" that Harris wants aren't; we've seen time and again that they can be every bit as good on a smaller screen.

That does not mean that I'm an uncultured man-child, as Harris condescendingly suggests. It means that television has gotten a lot better since the 70s, when it was possible to get people into theaters to watch talky "serious" movies. It hasn't been the 70s for 30 years, and Harris & the rest of Hollywood need to get over this idea that there's some well-deserved stigma associated with made-for-TV movies or having to settle for an Emmy instead of an Oscar.

3) The idea that this is anything new. I only agree with the “decades-long marginalization of the very notion of creative ambition" as long as you mean eight or nine decades. Haven't you seen Barton Fink? Hollywood has always been a business, and it's always been risk-averse. And original ideas have always been a tougher sell than whatever the audience has already bought. That's why there have been trends, from the Noir to the Western, each with its few standout genius works among a sea of crap.

So basically, I think Harris's article is shockingly out of touch with Hollywood and pop culture in general. Would it have been so terrible if The Social Network or The King's Speech had been HBO or even AMC productions instead of theatrical releases? I think Harris is just clinging to this extremely outdated and irrelevant idea of what "Hollywood" is, and he's insulting all of us animation and comic book fans in the process.

As for the other article: I haven't read the whole thing yet, but so far I agree with the bulk of it. Just about any studio that's getting accused of killing Hollywood with unoriginality has taken a chance on at least one or two original, great concepts recently, and they've gotten smacked for it. The audience just isn't there, and that doesn't mean the audience is stupid. It just means that the audience isn't taking the divisions between high art and low art, or the divisions between cinema and television, as seriously as a lot of self-important people in southern California.

I do think it's interesting that the discussion about lack of originality and risk in Hollywood would be prompted by a film version of In the Mountains of Madness. Or is it okay to base a movie on a book, as long as that book doesn't have pictures? Lovecraft has never been a viable Hollywood property — and again, I don't think it's the audience fault, but the realization that the appeal of Lovecraft is uniquely suited to prose, because existential horror doesn't come across in a movie. Why is anyone surprised?