Since helping to usher in the indie film movement in the early ’90s with sex, lies and videotape, Steven Soderbergh has seen enough of how the movie business works to know that there’s more wrong than right in the industry these days. His keynote speech at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival lets it all hang out, including how big movie studios attempt to foster success by playing the odds instead of true talent:

If you give a certain kind of rodent the option of hitting two buttons, and one of the buttons, when you touch it, dispenses food 40% of the time, and one of the buttons when you touch it dispenses food 60% percent of the time, this certain kind of rodent very quickly figures out never to touch the 40% button ever again. So when a studio is attempting to determine on a project-by-project basis what will work, instead of backing a talented filmmaker over the long haul, they’re actually increasing their chances of choosing wrong.

Good for him. Soderbergh has made both smart and entertaining films in his career—including one of my all-time favorites, 1998′s Out of Sight—and although he’s already announced his eventual retirement, I’m glad to finally see there’s substantial reasoning behind it. It’s sad that such a talented filmmaker has become so discouraged by the business of it all (this all reminds me of fellow ’90s indie scene alum Kevin Smith’s recent change in direction over the last couple of years), but I like to think sentiments like Soderbergh’s will influence other dissatisfied filmmakers and artists to blaze their own trails.

More at Deadline.com