Finally, a way to talk about this without a 140-character limit! Look, I will grant you that Harris is unnecessarily condescending toward comic book movies; even though he says that "the world of American movies is an infinitely richer place because of Pixar and that the very best comic-book movies, from Iron Man to The Dark Knight, are pretty terrific," I get the distinct impression his heart isn't in it—at least when it comes to the comic book part of the sentence. He clearly doesn't like that kind of movie.

But he's not wrong when he writes about the "decades-long marginalization of the very notion of creative ambition." If you greenlight Transformers, you're a hero. If you greenlight The Savages, you're fired. My employer just had news coverage of their upcoming slate, which represents the next couple of years of movies:

The Hobbit (PG-13)
James Bond 23 (PG-13)
Robocop (PG-13)
Mr. Mom (Maybe PG, maybe PG-13)
Poltergeist (PG-13)
The Idolmaker (PG?)
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (PG-13?)

So that's one original property they're cofinancing (a shameless, and doomed, ploy for Twilight money) and the rest are sequels and reboots. They are nominally looking at originals but their release schedule has something like two free slots between now and 2014, both for films with a maximum budget of 30M. Which rules out The Social Network, never mind Inception. The only movies they're excited about making are PG-13, kid-friendly, fast-food licenseable ideas with an existing fanbase. Some of those films could be spectacular, but that shouldn't be the only thing on a studio's development slate. (He's not making up the conventional wisdom that Warner couldn't get out of making Inception if they wanted Nolan to keep making Batman movies, either, though to be honest, I wouldn't have made Inception myself).

I haven't seen The Adjustment Bureau, but I certainly support anything with "a novel idea that doesn’t patronize the audience." Harris's point, and one I agree with him about, is that no one at the major studios cares about "a novel idea that doesn’t patronize the audience"; they care about hitting the PG-13 rating, making back as much as they can from licensing, and getting the opening weekend money before internet buzz kills the movie (they hate Twitter). If Inception hadn't done so well, you wouldn't have seen a quarter of as much marketing for The Adjustment Bureau as you did, and remember, nobody thought it was a good idea to make Inception.