The film world has always had a relatively healthy relationship with new technology. It embraced sound, came around to color, flirted with 3D repeatedly only to cast it aside as a gimmick (again repeatedly), and even overcame its aversion to digital. When computer graphics became affordable, Hollywood found a way to use it in everything\u2014to the point that actors now get a little kiss of digital witchery in nearly every film and TV show you watch. Even streaming was eventually embraced. But artificial intelligence, morality questions aside, has been particularly well loved by the suits making motion pictures happen. Which would be great if that deep and abiding affection for AI had actually done anything to turn around Hollywood\u2019s decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AI has definitely been getting buzz in Tinseltown. As the people making the films have become more and more tech-pilled, they\u2019ve gotten more and more vocal about the wonders AI could eventually do. New movies with long-dead actors! Wild and expensive movies generated with a prompt! A neverending font of concepts and concept art! The possibilities of AI are endless when you cast aside all other concerns.<\/p>\n
But Hollywood, faster than perhaps any other industry, has also repeatedly been forced to engage with the harms of AI to the wider workforce. Its meteoric rise in hype happened to coincide with not one but three different massive unions renegotiating their contracts. In 2023 the Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild Of America, and the Directors Guild Of America all used AI hype to demand protections from AI in their new contracts. \u201cThe use of AI in motion pictures is now a mandatory collective bargaining topic when dealing with unions in the entertainment industry,\u201d The Hollywood Reporter noted<\/a>.<\/p>\n The WGA secured protections to keep AI out of writers\u2019 rooms. SAG secured limitations on the work fully synthetic AI-generated actors could perform. The DGA secured a sideletter that required twice annual meetings on AI.<\/a> The sideletter worked well enough that the DGA\u2019s 2026 contract<\/a> requires production companies tell directors in advance if they\u2019ll be forced to use AI in their movies.<\/p>\n But despite reckoning with AI\u2019s potential to demolish jobs three years ago, and again in the most recent contract negotiations, there is still no indication that AI is actually saving Hollywood. When it is mentioned, it\u2019s usually negative\u2014such as when Darren Aronofsky made a whole Revolutionary War miniseries with AI<\/a>, or when the trailer dropped for a film starring Val Kilmer<\/a>, who died in 2025 and hadn\u2019t been able to use his natural voice since 2015. Even critical darlings haven\u2019t escaped the backlash. The Brutalist\u2019s editor admitted he used AI tools to improve the Hungarian accents of the leads<\/a> and people were furious. Turns out the wider public is all aghast by uses of AI, not held in rapture.<\/p>\n Which is funny because AI was used for years with little backlash\u2014it\u2019s been particularly useful when effects artists need to paint an actor\u2019s face onto a stunt double\u2019s or make an ancient actor look young again. It was how Martin Scorsese managed to get half the cast of The Irishman looking younger<\/a>. It wasn\u2019t a problem in 2019 because Scorsese paid effects artists to do the work, and AI made that work go a lot faster for the artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now it makes you a pariah to even mention AI. It has, for many people, become indicative of greed. There\u2019s a sense of moral failure if you embrace AI in Hollywood. That\u2019s why A24, revered by film nerds everywhere, had to publicly defend its recent deal with Google<\/a>. People thought A24 was different, but ultimately A24 would \u201crather have a seat at the table than on the sidelines,\u201d Sophia Shin, who runs communications at A24, told Wired.\u00a0<\/p>\n But FOMO is a reason to stop scrolling Instagram, not do million-dollar deals with tech companies. Hollywood should have learned that when everyone had an NFT ape. Instead you get silly deals. After OpenAI created a lot of buzz with its video platform Sora, Disney rushed to get its piece of the potential pie<\/a>. \u201cThe rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works,\u201d then-CEO Bob Iger said in a press release announcing the deal.<\/p>\n But four months after that corporate speak-styled press release, OpenAI killed Sora. \u201cThe deal is not moving forward,\u201d Iger had to tell Deadline.<\/a> The collapse of that deal was rumored to be part of OpenAI\u2019s larger crisis around having enough computational power<\/a> (also known as compute) to do all the cool things they promise AI can do. But perhaps Iger and co. finally looked at the app they\u2019d made a deal to be a part of and realized it was TikTok slop.<\/p>\n AI is on rocky footing right now.<\/a> Both OpenAI and Anthropic, the two biggest AI model makers in the U.S., are now competing with open source models from China<\/a> that have the full backing of the Chinese government. To compete. they fully believe they need compute<\/a> and that\u2019s made them desperate for powerful computers to train and run their powerful models. That in turn has kicked off a data center construction boom<\/a>, with every rando with a few million dollars and a dream of bigger dollar signs building data centers in the hopes of leasing their servers and cashing in on the AI boom too.<\/p>\n A24, Disney, and everyone else inking deals with these AI companies are in the same boat as the data center builders. They see a wave of cash and they want to make sure they can catch the wave, not get killed by it. That\u2019s not how you save a whole industry from extinction. That\u2019s just fear and greed.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Hollywood had a soul, it would chase AI boosters out with pitchforks,\u201d AI critic Ed Zitron told me over the phone. \u201cAI-generated video sucks, looks awful, costs an incredible sum and lacks any of the actual features of even the lowest quality shittiest written movie in history.\u201d It\u2019s not going to save Hollywood any more than 3D movies, dine-in theaters, 4DX, or NFTs did. It\u2019s best used as a tool to replace faces, not remake the whole industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The film world has always had a relatively healthy relationship with new technology. 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