Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

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<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1784696589257thumbnail-F7m3y2hyWVI-1280x720 (13).jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Hollywood sign in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.<em> 📷༘ Jungtinės Valstijos, Unsplash</em></span></span></span></div><p>NEW YORK, United States — Once wary of artificial intelligence, Hollywood is now striking up partnerships with AI start-ups and weaving the technology into productions more and more openly—all while insisting the creative process itself will remain untouched.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/movies-series/2026/7/11/people-disdain-ai-says-director-christopher-nolan-1104">People &#x27;disdain&#x27; AI, says director Christopher Nolan</a></div><p>&quot;Everybody is still wrapping their head around it,&quot; said Mike Mosallam, COO of production company Shadowbox Studios, in an interview with Variety as recently 2025.</p><p>Rattled by the technology, Hollywood initially went on the defensive.</p><p>Studios worried about their intellectual property being misused, and actors feared becoming little more than raw material for AI systems—and made it a central plank of their strike action in 2023.</p><p>Those who did experiment ran into the technology&#x27;s early limitations—six-fingered hands, mouths that didn&#x27;t move right.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/movies-series/2026/7/7/ai-actress-tilly-norwood-to-star-in-feature-film-0829">AI actress Tilly Norwood to star in feature film</a></div><p>But a floodgate opened in early March, when Netflix bought a small, little-known company -- fewer than 20 employees -- for a hefty $587 million.</p><p>Co-founded in 2022 by producer, director and actor Ben Affleck, InterPositive is an AI platform designed to assist film and TV production.</p><p>In early June, studio Lionsgate took a stake in Runway, one of the leading names in AI-generated video, and the two will now develop creative projects together.</p><p>Days later, Google made a similar move, investing in independent studio A24.</p><p>Recent ad campaigns and short films have shown that AI video -- even when it includes human characters -- has crossed a real threshold.</p><p>As Runway put it in May: &quot;In many cases, if the story is strong enough, the technology is now good enough to become invisible.&quot;</p><p>According to Jamie Umpherson, Runway&#x27;s chief creative officer, people are learning to use the tools better as the technology improves on a &quot;scale that was unimaginable a couple of years ago.&quot;</p><p>&quot;There&#x27;s more familiarity than there was even a year ago,&quot; he said, adding that this is freeing up creative teams to focus more on story and style.</p><p>Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos struck a similar note when presenting the company&#x27;s results in mid-July: &quot;We&#x27;re making higher quality output more quickly and efficiently than we could have using traditional methods.&quot;</p><p>He said GenAI workflows have now been used on roughly 300 Netflix titles, mostly in post-production, adding: &quot;We&#x27;re leveraging GenAI for really complicated shots and sequences.&quot;</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;HYBRID&#x27; </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Still, the streaming giant seems to be focusing mainly on the edges of production -- from visualizing a concept early on to color-grading footage after filming wraps.</p><p>Independent director and producer Jon Erwin insists the core of the craft isn&#x27;t going anywhere.</p><p>&quot;Actors drive all the performances, and we use these tools to amplify the sets and the scope of the shows,&quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;But we preserve the core of the filmmaking process, which is the relationship between the actor, the director and the camera. These tools do not replace that.&quot;</p><p>In April, his production company Wonder Project launched a joint venture called Innovative Dreams with Luma, a rival to Runway.</p><p>Together they have developed a new process that lets actors be filmed naturally -- no green screen, no motion-capture suit -- and then surrounds them with a hyper-realistic AI-generated world.</p><p>Erwin calls it &quot;hybrid&quot; or &quot;nonlinear&quot; filmmaking.</p><p>The process is fast enough that the AI-generated backdrop can be added just minutes after a scene is shot, giving filmmakers an almost-instant preview -- and the chance to shoot additional takes right away if needed.</p><p>The first feature film built on this approach, &quot;Young Washington,&quot; has already grossed more than $40 million at the box office -- double its production budget -- starring Oscar winner Ben Kingsley alongside two Golden Globe winners.</p><p>Technicians, actors and camera operators still have a place in this new ecosystem, though how many of them will be needed remains an open question.</p><p>Actor Matt Damon voiced concern about this, referring to Christopher Nolan&#x27;s &quot;The Odyssey,&quot; shot across three continents: &quot;I don&#x27;t think people are going to be given the resources to shoot movies that way for much longer.&quot;</p><p>So far, Hollywood&#x27;s traditional powerhouses -- Paramount, Universal, Sony, Walt Disney and Warner Bros -- have officially stayed on the sidelines of the AI shift.</p><p>But Tanya Porquez, CEO of Generated Group -- which has just launched a database of AI-generated video creations -- thinks that won&#x27;t last.</p><p>&quot;Studios will have to get on board. Not because they necessarily want to, but I think it&#x27;s just the wave.&quot;</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><strong><br/></strong></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><div><strong><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aYd6-kymGQs?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></strong></div>

<p>Once wary of artificial intelligence, Hollywood is now striking up partnerships with AI start-ups and weaving the technology into productions more and more openly—all while insisting the creative process itself will remain untouched.</p>

Once wary of artificial intelligence, Hollywood is now striking up partnerships with AI start-ups and weaving the technology into productions more and more openly—all while insisting the creative process itself will remain untouched.

A once wary Hollywood slowly warms to AI

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A once wary Hollywood slowly warms to AI

Thomas Urbain,

Agence France-Presse

Published July 22, 2026 01:06 PM PHT

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