> movie piracy is what made new movies very safe, like remakes or sequels

elaborate? I don't see the connection

It used to be worthwhile to task risks in filmmaking because if you made a smash hit movie, you could keep it in theaters for a long time before offering at-home access, and still charge a lot for that. I know people talk about how much cheaper theaters used to be, but ~$10 meant a lot more in say the early 2000s, and that was per-person, and they had more volume.

Piracy set a ceiling on the price and fuss they can ask for. A producer taking big risks will take the same losses as before but can't milk the hits. It's now better to aim for a steady supply of ok media to keep people paying subscriptions. Bonus if they can fit into some franchise so they can also milk the IP in non-piratable ways like merch and theme parks. Some point to tech alone (minus piracy) for killing theaters. Yes, but that's a different point. Without piracy, they could've charged a lot for digital streaming new releases. This did actually happen for some period of time. You only broke even vs theater tickets if like 10 people were watching, ignoring the cost of the equipment.

An alternative theory is that media companies consolidated and became monocultured, and that this would've happened without piracy.