I'm sure you've seen this[1] before, but the answer is probably more of a feedback loop. The big-money movies could afford to do more color alterations that caused movies to appear to "pop", getting audiences used to those colors, forcing less-expensive movies to do the same as the technology to do so became cheaper.

1. http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-ho...