On that note it also raised an interesting discussion about how many auteur directors are left?
I'm talking big name, old school directors with a real brand or identity, and enough clout to command large studio budgets and A list casts, and where each new film of theirs feels like a big deal... because when you think about it, there really aren't that many.
Tarantino
Spielberg
Nolan
Wes Anderson
Scorsese, The Coens and Fincher are the obvious ones. Maybe Tim Burton and Peter Jackson.
Wes's brother, Paul, Cuarón and Villeneuve are working at budgets and a level of fame somewhere south of those others. Adam McKay and Lord & Miller are getting there; Judd Apatow and Richard Curtis have left there.
In previous decades, Waititi, Peele, Cosmatos, Lanthimos, Eggers, Fukunaga, Inarritu and Saulnier would be on track to join them in the pantheon, but, as you say, those films don't get space in cinemas nowadays*.
Which, to be honest, I'm fine with. I discovered the work of absolutely everyone above on home video; same goes for most of the films I love. Now cinemas are no longer slightly faded converted theatres, trips to the pictures feel like a trip to the dentist. As an aside, Jon Favreau should really be on that list, but - like Zemeckis - he's managed to avoid attracting the cult of personality necessary for canonisation. Bay, Abrahms, and Snyder have, but fuck those guys. Gunn and Fieg, maybe? Wither Aronofsky, Payne, and O Russell?