The truth? Good films end up shelved ALL THE TIME.
Great films often get lost in the system.
Brilliant ideas often never get funded. The best scripts, the ones that get passed around back and forth -RARELY- get greenlights.
About 15 years ago, there was a round table with Francis Ford, Spike Lee, Scorcese, Spielberg and others, and they ALL confessed they
struggled to get their next film made.
Wait, it gets better....
The days of a Tarantino or Rodiriguez getting through the door and blowing up are slim to none. Even during the heyday of 90's indie cinema, only a few got past the gatekeepers...because even on a low indie level, there are gatekeepers.
There are only a hand full of sales reps, and only a couple dozen distributors who have handled projects you've heard of.
The festivals are set up like getting into Harvard Law....some are there on merit, but most on pedigree and association.
Think the internet is the great equalizer? It is. But it's also a slush pile of camera tests, and garbage that few people can wade through.
Which means a guy like Spielberg who was big man on campus, and owned his own campus feels the heat of a more democratizing process, and studios reacting by only producing sure thing major blockbusters with toy and product tie ins, so they can make back their marketing budgets. (Even Django had action figures).
All the while, indie films take even less economical risks, less creative risks, and the gatekeeping requires you the filmmaker to be the Prom King/Queen or the captain of the football team to get through that system. It means the big festivals have already selected films connected with a hand full of known industry people, before the submission deadlines. It means more than half the films a Sundance are repped by one man. It means distributors are offering award winning films deals in the 50k range, before you pay out E&O insurance, and differed costs. It also means distributors are making offers of 5K for a feature film, for world rights, and doing it with a straight face.
This is the reality we're up against. Creative filmmaking is not as important to getting your film seen as creative salemanship, and business. This is what we're all up against.