The mainstream American film landscape is an ever-changing one. The moviegoing public, that fickle white whale that studios have chased, cajoled, and bamboozled for decades on end, has been provided with an almost overwhelming number of pictures from which to choose. This year, about 150 movies got wide releases (playing in 1,000 theaters or more), while hundreds of others fought for breathing room on the fringes in independent theaters and on other platforms, like Video-On-Demand and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. About 1.2 billion tickets were sold this year, but of course, not everyone can be a winner. With six major studios (Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Disney, Universal, Sony, and Paramount), and dozens of major films playing on thousands of screens at a time, there will always be some blood on the floor at the end of the day. Read on for an analysis of the winners and losers of the American movie scene this year
