Don't forget the "theater" factor. It used to be that most of the revenue came from theatrical presentation, so it was the major (at the time) distribution channel that had a big say in Hollywood going "wider."
Obviously that is no longer true. Still, I'm pretty convinced that some movies are being released on DVD cropped to 16:9... War of the World's comes to mind. Academy standard in theaters as I recall, 16:9 on DVD and in HD cable broadcast.
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