From broadcast to self-cast: The future of AI-made entertainment

A llama sets out on an adventure across space and time.

Recently, I had a marathon of old “sword and sorcery” movies; over a few days I watched films such as ‘Conan the Barbarian’, ‘The Neverending Story’, ‘Excalibur’, ‘Labyrinth’, ‘Highlander’, ‘Legend’, ‘Ladyhawke’, ‘The Princess Bride’, ‘Willow’, ‘Krull’, and ‘Dragonslayer’. It was a lot of fun, the good movies remained good, particularly ‘Conan’, ‘The Princess Bride’, ‘Ladyhawke’, and ‘Highlander’. And I watched some truly terrible films as well. I had completely forgotten just how terrible ‘Beastmaster’, ‘The Sword and the Sorcerer’, ‘Hawk the Slayer’, and ‘Krull’ were: plot-by-numbers, hackneyed attempts at developing the monomyth, no character development, gratuitous nudity, laughable special effects, low production values, objectionably forced romance… did I mention the gratuitous nudity? Interestingly, some films that I used to love had aged badly—particularly ‘Legend’, ‘Dragonslayer’, and ‘Willow’, which suffered from bad acting and pacing issues.

This fun-filled media marathon (or self-inflicted torture, depending on the film) got me thinking about how dreadful the movie landscape has become in the last decade. We have never had so much access to films at the click of a button, and yet there is something missing from this media diet; there’s a type of storytelling that appears to have been lost to the sands of time. I’m trying to recall the last time I watched a properly good film at the cinema that wasn’t part of a franchise, a sequel, a prequel, or a reboot. Probably ‘Interstellar’, as I didn’t watch ‘Oppenheimer’ in the cinema. I know that there have been other good movies in the intervening time, but I honestly haven’t bothered to go to the cinema, and usually just wait for them to go to digital, or take a trip to the buccaneering seas. But it is not only good movies—the “sword and sorcery” movies I described above give us another indication of just how bad the entire movie landscape has become. Original ideas in genre entertainment have almost entirely disappeared, mostly replaced with unoriginal dross.

Yes, I know this may come across as one of those articles that boil down to “in my time things were better”, but I do enjoy quite a lot of recent media, particularly genre output. I loved the new ‘Superman’, and I also pretty much enjoyed ‘Alien Romulus’, just to name a couple of recent movies. But a certain type of cutting-edge imaginative film has all but disappeared from the screen; I can’t recall a modern equivalent of movies like ‘Conan the Barbarian’ and ‘The Princess Bride’.

If you have made it this far, you may be wondering what this all has to do with artificial intelligence. Well, I believe that while many see AI as a potential threat to creativity, we should look at AI in the context of the current media landscape, and we should recognise that we are currently going through a bit of a lull in mainstream creativity. Hollywood has become too complacent, relying on superhero movies and safely innocuous blockbusters, and we may be in for an AI-led revolution. Allow me to elaborate.

AI has come at a time of crisis for the movie industry. Audiences seem more reluctant to get out to watch movies, and the streaming generation has become harder to reach. At the same time, AI video models are improving, as the launch of Sora 2 exemplified, so Hollywood has reasons to worry. And yet, AI is certainly being seen as an opportunity. It is clear that they are not going after the large AI developers, they appear to only be attacking smaller targets such as Midjourney. My theory is that studios are seeing what is going on and have decided that AI is where it’s at. Eventually they will be incorporating it into their workflows regardless of vitriolic social media campaigns.

The most likely way that this could happen is through the use of AI to act as just a creative tool. In this scenario, AI becomes another instrument in the filmmaker’s toolkit, much like CGI was in the 1990s, or digital cameras in the 2000s. Directors and writers could use AI to rapidly prototype scenes, generate concept art, or even create entire rough cuts to test pacing and narrative flow before committing significant resources to production. This could reduce the cost and time required to develop original ideas, potentially allowing studios to take more risks on unconventional stories rather than relying on safe, franchise-driven content. The technology could handle the grunt work of visual effects, freeing up human creatives to focus on the aspects that truly require artistic vision and emotional intelligence. We’re already seeing early versions of this with AI-assisted colour grading, de-ageing effects, and crowd generation. I hate the over-use of the term “democratising”, but it is true that AI could reduce costs, and therefore lower the barriers of entry to smaller studios and independent filmmakers who might otherwise lack the budget for ambitious genre projects.

And the other way in which Hollywood can use AI is by allowing users to make their own stories in what has become known as “hyperpersonalised media”. Imagine being able to watch your own version of ‘The Princess Bride’ where you can adjust the tone, change character dynamics, or even insert yourself into the narrative. Imagine being able to change the ending of Season 8 of “Game of Thrones”, or finish (and maybe even fix) unfinished and cancelled series such as “Firefly” and “The Wheel of Time”. This could represents a shift in how we consume entertainment, from passive viewers to active participants in the storytelling process. Studios could release base narratives and world-building frameworks, essentially creating sandbox environments where audiences generate their own unique experiences. You might watch a sword and sorcery adventure on Monday night that’s entirely different from what your neighbour watches, despite both being based on the same core IP. This could extend beyond mere customisation; users might be able to commission entirely bespoke films tailored to their specific tastes, blending elements from different genres, adjusting the level of violence or romance, or even changing the ending to suit their preferences.

And yet, this future scares me, even though I tend to be an optimistic technophile. The question, of course, is whether such individualised content would still retain the cultural impact of shared cinematic experiences, or whether we’d lose something essential in the process. Moreover, imagine all of the issues with the above for almost every aspect of life, from misinformation to privacy. Imagine being cast as the villain in a film by a person who dislikes you, or even worse, the very prospect of unauthorised use of a person’s image in sexualised content. This is also a nightmare scenario for auteur filmmakers, you could eventually lose control over your own creations.

And yet you can be sure that this is the very future that is being planned right now in many places, as it opens up an unimaginable number of future revenue streams.

So we should really start having conversations about this future right now; otherwise the technological advances are going to go ahead without any scrutiny, just as we have witnessed in the last three years. The hyperpersonalised future opens entirely new legal questions about moral rights and the viability of the existing copyright legal edifice. I think that’s not a bad thing for us to start rethinking technologies that were created in the top-down, gatekeeper past. There could be endless licensing opportunities, and I think this is where some things may very well be headed.

But most importantly, I think that this puts a revamp of image and personality rights at the forefront of future reform. Copyright has become the way in which we handle old media; the future is how we handle the rights that are allocated to performers. In the past, performers were often forgotten in the creative process, but if we make image and publicity rights the centrepiece of any future AI regulation, then those performers could eventually benefit. We are moving to a media environment where everyone’s voice and likeness can be easily copied and used by generative AI, why not make our image the most important part of this future? Copyright was created for publishers, for the large industries, for the gatekeepers. Image rights are about all of us. We should be making this the most important part of future AI discussions.

Nevertheless, I do like the idea of revisiting old media with new technology. Fix Christopher Lambert’s and Sean Connery’s accents in ‘Highlander’. Finish (and fix) ‘The Wheel of Time’. Make a new Star Wars trilogy using the Timothy Zahn novels. Edit ‘The Hobbit’ into a single film. Fix ‘The Acolyte’…

No, there are things that not even AI can fix.