Looking back at 2006, when American Independent Cinema: An Introduction was first published, one cannot fail to see how remarkably different the independent film landscape in the US was then compared with its current shape. The sector was dominated by the so-called studio specialty film divisions such as Focus Features and Fox Searchlight, whose films such as Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005) and Little Miss Sunshine (Faris and Dayton, 2006) were exemplars of a cinema that was perceived to be as close to that of the Hollywood majors as it was to the independent sector. Often labelled ‘indiewood’, this kind of cinema was aspired to and practised by a number of standalone companies such as the then newly established Yari Film Group Releasing and Weinstein Company, with films such as The Illusionist (Burger, 2006) and The Matador (Shephard, 2005), respectively, both with considerable commercial potential, given the presence of stars, stories that take place within clear generic frameworks and strong production values. Indiewood was also practised occasionally by larger divisions of the Hollywood conglomerated majors, such as New Line Cinema's The New World (Malick, 2005), as well as by diversified mini-majors such as Lions Gate (later Lionsgate), whose Akeelah and the Bee (Atchison, 2006) was very different from the company's more obviously commercial titles. Even more occasionally, indiewood could be found in the release slates of the Hollywood majors themselves, with Sony backing (financially and as a distributor) Marie Antoinette (S. Coppola, 2006) and Warner Bros. releasing Syriana (Gaghan, 2006).

At the lower end of the US independent film market, less commercial and often more daring and challenging filmmaking continued to take place. Driven by developments in digital technology, which had become increasingly both user-friendly and affordable, low-end independent filmmaking, quality and beyond, was expanding dramatically in terms of number of titles. However, very rarely were these kinds of film attracting any attention or becoming crossover successes. With the number of distributors operating in the US theatrical market in 2006 having reached 150, the marketplace had become incredibly congested.