One of the few directors still making B-movies is Jaume Collet-Serra, whose latest entry is “The Commuter,” a perfectly adequate thriller that is neither incredible nor terrible. Now, every movie is a huge gamble for the studios because they are sinking more and more money into fewer and fewer projects, resulting in everything being market-tested and demographically approved, and thereby preventing the sort of mid-tier filmmaking that was the bread and butter of many production companies for decades. B-movies never had lavish budgets, would comfortably rest on having one or two “name” actors in the cast, and possessed a very simple ambition of being entertaining. The B-movie got its name from its placement in double features back in the day audiences would pay for one ticket to two movies – the A film that had the stars and the money behind it, and the secondary picture that was made to prop up the A-movie and perhaps make some money as well. One of the casualties of this striation of films is the B-movie, that entertaining and totally adequate movie that was never made to break box office records or reap tons of praise from critics. For the most part, they are either putting out tentpole films (giant blockbusters with hundreds of millions of dollars in budget and marketing) or prestige pictures (smaller projects made to garner awards, praise and therefore raise the profile of the studio).
Despite the fact that there are now more ways to create and distribute films, there has been a continual shrinking of the types of movies that major studios release.