People forget that industries have life cycles. It is easy to assume that because film is a big and growing business today, it always will be. But if you take a long term look at things, industries tend to grow, plateau, shrink, and become niche, diappear or evolve into something fairly different. Music industry is on the way down, and film will follow.
In the 1970s the American film industry was near bankrupt...and had one of its great periods as well.