The Hope for Hollywood Gains Ground

Adobe Firefly: Curt Doty

Hollywood’s been accused of many things—navel-gazing, risk aversion, an addiction to reboots—but optimism hasn’t been high on the list lately. Especially not when the conversation turns to AI.

Yet, something’s shifted. You can feel it in the studio lots, the indie sets, the virtual production stages. The fear fog is lifting. And amid the legal scuffles, guild negotiations, and alarmist headlines, a new narrative is emerging: AI might just save Hollywood—or at least help it rediscover its creative edge.

“AI is just the next chapter of technological evolution… no different from anything that’s happened in our business through the years,” Seth Hallen told me recently. The man’s seen a few chapters, as a media tech investor and past president of the Hollywood Professional Association. He’s not naïve about the threats, but he’s adamant: “We’re not talking about replacing people. We’re talking about redefining roles, as has always happened with new technology.”

I’ve said it myself more than once on my podcast and in my writing: “Hollywood has never loved change. Whether it was the introduction of sound, color, or digital cameras, the industry pushed back—until it couldn’t.”

From Paralysis to Progress

Let’s be honest: the industry’s initial reaction to AI was a blend of panic and paralysis. Writers worried about prompt-fueled script factories. Actors imagined AI avatars replacing flesh-and-blood performances. Editors braced for the machines to “enhance” them into unemployment.

But the thaw is real. As Peter Csathy puts it, he’s an “AI stoic.” He’s not waving pompoms for progress, but he’s pragmatic: “There are very positive uses to AI when it comes to filmmaking… It’s a new medium on which to paint.”

Yulia Gushchina , over at Filmustage, is seeing that painting happen in real time. “Tools like Veo 3 and Runway ML now make it possible to generate high-quality visuals, storyboards, and even video clips that were once only accessible to big-budget productions,” she says. That’s not just cost-saving—that’s a creative unlock for indie filmmakers who used to dream big but settle small.

I’ve seen that hope firsthand too. “This isn’t about replacing artists—it’s about supercharging them,” I’ve said. “Technology is what we use to get creativity out of our heads and into the world.”

Enter Sinima and the New Breed

It’s not just about tools. New platforms are emerging, built from the ground up to integrate AI with traditional creative workflows. One name buzzing around is Sinima—a platform aiming to merge creative collaboration with AI pipelines. Think of it as a filmmaking operating system where humans and machines co-direct the magic.

Andy Beach Andy Beach, former Microsoft CTO and AI sage, is big on this hybrid future. “Imagine a media industry where AI does not replace creativity but enhances it,” he writes. He’s seeing AI streamline storyboarding, location scouting, script revisions—freeing humans to focus on the high-value creative choices.

Mark Turner echoes this optimism, albeit with a practical note. He’s bullish on AI accelerating timelines and shrinking budgets—while cautioning that pros won’t simply type a text prompt and call it a film. “A film director is visual… they will direct with emotion. The idea of saying, ‘Now put all that down into a text prompt,’ was never really going to happen for the high-end content creation,” he explains.

The Licensing Labyrinth

Of course, not all is rosy. AI’s creative potential comes with a thorny side: copyright and licensing. It’s the elephant in the virtual room, and it’s shaping every conversation.

Peter put it bluntly: “Technology has to be implemented in the right way—and the right way has a lot of different aspects to it. Certainly, there are the business and legal issues.” One of the biggest? The murky question of how much human input is required for a work to be copyrightable. “If something is not owned by you from a copyright standpoint, then others can use what you’ve created, and that may not be what you want.”

I’ve felt this frustration myself: “We’re all running forward with new tools, but we’re building on a legal foundation that’s cracked and shifting under our feet. The licensing dilemma is the real showstopper no one wants to headline.”

It’s a paradox. The same tools that empower creativity can also borrow—sometimes unknowingly—from copyrighted styles, images, or characters. Even when creators train models on their own work, the output can drift into murky derivative territory. As I’ve said: “If AI learns from the world’s creativity, who owns the result? That’s the billion-dollar question—and the next thousand lawsuits.”

Yet, even amid this mess, progress persists. Artists like Paul Trillo are creating entire films with Runway’s Gen-2. Corridor Digital reimagined a “Spider-Verse”-style short film using AI tools. As Yulia pointed out, “With minimal crew and no elaborate sets, indie filmmakers can bring surreal, visually rich scenes to life.”

The Noise and the Signal

Of course, the deluge is coming. AI will flood the internet with cinematic sludge. Peter warns of “a lot more noise out there,” and Mark calls it “a flood of absolute dearth.” But there’s confidence that true talent and taste will still rise. “The cream doesn’t stop rising just because there’s more milk,” I’ve said before. “It just takes longer to skim.”

Hollywood’s always had its existential crises. Talkies killed the organists but gave birth to sound engineers. CGI terrified practical effects artists until it became another tool in the box. AI will be no different.

Seth Hallen sees it clearly: “This is just the next chapter.” The hope for Hollywood isn’t just alive—it’s gaining ground.

Watch AI in Film on YouTube. https://youtu.be/p0BVazhtXag

About the Author

Curt Doty, founder of CurtDoty.co, is an award winning creative director whose legacy lies in branding, product development, social strategy, integrated marketing, and User Experience Design. His work of entertainment branding includes Electronic Arts, EA Sports, ProSieben, SAT.1, WBTV Latin America, Discovery Health, ABC, CBS, A&E, StarTV, Fox, Kabel 1, and TV Guide Channel.

He has extensive experience on AI-driven platforms MidJourney, Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT, Perplexity, HeyGen, Descript and OpusClips. He also runs his AI consultancy RealmIQ and companion podcast RealmIQ: Sessions on YouTube and Spotify.

As a new writer, he released his first novella Griffin and the Dark Secret on Amazon under his imprint MediaSlam Press and is working on the second installment Griffin: Future Past.

He is a sought after public speaker having been featured at Streaming Media NYC, Digital Hollywood, Mobile Growth Association, Mobile Congress, App Growth Summit, Promax, CES, CTIA, NAB, NATPE, MMA Global, New Mexico Angels, Santa Fe Business Incubator, EntrepeneursRx, Davos Worldwide, PRSANM, Robert Half, and AI Impact. He has lectured at universities including Full Sail, SCAD, Art Center College of Design, CSUN and Chapman University.

He currently serves on the board of the Godfrey Reggio Foundation and is the AI Writer for Parlay Me.