Blockbusters are defined by economic function more than aesthetics

Evidence

As it has become necessary to differentiate theatergoing from home consumption, an epoch of large-scale blockbusters has seen high-budget big-effect films, often parts of franchises that seem to guarantee audiences and provide titanic opportunities for product integration like video games and merchandising. Block-busters, the work of communications scholar Charles Acland suggests, may be defined as much by this economic function for studios as by their actual aesthetics. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 237

Categorization

• XREF: Acland’s economic-functional definition of genre echoes the reader’s underlying theme that genre categories are anchored in capital circulation rather than form.