“One thing that’s really changed [in the last few years] is the independent landscape,” Hurt Locker screenwriter-producer Mark Boal said in a recent (11.15) Hollywood Reporter ‘Award Watch’ roundtable. “I didn’t know much about it, but I learned in the process of writing The Hurt Locker and producing it. That was a four-year thing, all in, and by the end of that period I felt like, ‘Wow, I’ve learned a little bit about how independent films work.'”

“And in the last year,” Boal concludes, “I’ve watched that entire business model crash and burn. I don’t know that the film I set out to make four years ago could get made again today.” Amazing! Today’s business environment might well prohibit (or come close to squelching) the next Hurt Locker-type boldfacer.