Times change; Hollywood is not the same as it was when I first entered the business. It felt to me like it was starting to narrow down and centralize itself around what would... make money.

When profit margins replace artistic vision

There's a particular kind of disillusionment that comes from watching an entire industry slowly optimize itself into blandness. What Redford is describing isn't just nostalgia—it's the recognizable pattern of any field where money becomes the primary filter for what gets made, what gets funded, what gets green-lit. When profit margins matter more than the specific vision that draws artists in the first place, you get safer choices, fewer experiments, and a narrowing of what's even possible.

The strange part is how this happens gradually, almost invisibly. A few hit formulas work, so executives fund more like them. Risk gets funneled out. A young filmmaker today probably experiences the same squeeze Redford noticed decades ago, just in a different form—maybe TikTok algorithms instead of studio executives, maybe the pressure to go viral instead of to make art. The machinery finds its most efficient settings and locks in.

What's worth noticing is that this isn't a Hollywood story at all. It's what happens when any human system matures and centralizes. Schools teach to standardized tests. Journalism chases clicks. Even our personal choices narrow when we're optimizing for safety or efficiency. The question Redford's really asking is: what do we sacrifice when we stop taking creative risks just because they might fail?