Some thoughts on all this.

Firstly, as I often feel the need to point out, this applies only to mainstream Hollywood. Cinema remains vibrant, creative, incisive, and challenging elsewhere in the world - Korean cinema, Japanese cinema, films from the Middle East, Europe, Scandinavia, the UK, and the (truly) independent US scene.

Secondly, the success of Barbie and Oppenheimer is reason to feel a certain optimism about mainstream Hollywood, though it all depends what lessons are learned (we don't necessarily need more films about toys, or sequels to Barbie for that matter, or more films about scientists).

Thirdly, I do believe, with diminishing returns at the point they are now with both superhero films and many of Disney's releases, things are about to be shaken up in Hollywood, hopefully for the better. I don't believe the future is necessarily as bleak as you think it could be.

All that said, I do believe the current state of mainstream Hollywood in general is at an all time high of creative inertia. Like you, I'd like to see a return to modestly budgeted films being the norm. Apart from anything else, it just makes better business sense. Make good films from good stories, don't necessarily have marketing campaigns that bludgeon into oblivion and cost the national debt of a small Latin American country, and audiences will turn up, leading to a proper return on investment.

I believe the seductive lure of streaming will wear off, just as the seductive lure of television, VHS, and so forth, all wore off in previous years. Cinema will survive, so Hollywood will eventually catch on that ultimately a film must be a good film first and foremost, ahead of financial considerations.

In the meantime, continue to expect my annual best-of lists to be very light on mainstream Hollywood product. :)