By the turn of the millennium, the average production cost of an American feature had already spent three years above the $50 million mark. In 2005, the top ten movies at the U.S. box office included three adaptations of children's fantasy novels (including one extending and , as well as a remake of a 1971 film), a child-targeted cartoon, a comic book adaptation, a , a sci-fi remake, and a "King Kong" remake. It was a slow year for Corman: he produced just one movie, which had no American theatrical release, true of most of the pictures he had been involved in recently. "Bloodfist 2050", directed by long-time B filmmaker and Corman collaborator Cirio H. Santiago, went straight to DVD in the United States. Ultrawide openings at many thousands of theaters were becoming the norm. In May 2007 alone, three fantasy blockbusters—"" (third in a series based on an amusement-park ride), "Spider-Man 3" (third in a series based on a superhero comic book), and "Shrek the Third" (third in a series of "family" cartoons)—each opened on over 10,000 screens. As big-budget Hollywood movies further usurped the genre territories that were traditionally the domain of the B's, the ongoing viability of the familiar brand of B movie was in grave doubt. Critic A. O. Scott of the "New York Times" warned of the impending "extinction" of