Everyone Is Using AI in Hollywood

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1:19From Wired, this is The Big Interview, where we get to know the people beyond the headlines in conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power, and culture. I'm Katie Drummond, Wired's Global Editorial Director. I love a good scoop. And earlier this summer, my guest today, Matt Bellany, the co-founder of Puck, had a bombshell one. In June, just mere months after Amazon announced an enormous investment into OpenAI, to the tune of$50 billion, dollars, Matt broke the story that Amazon MGM Studios had decided to dump their Sam Altman biopic, which had cost them some$40 million to make.

1:55Reportedly, the decision came down to the tech giant's concern that the film portrayed their new strategic partner in a less than flattering light. The news sent a bit of a shockwave through Hollywood, as the implications of Silicon Valley's grip on the industry has seemingly entered a new phase. Or maybe it was a sign that the shift has already taken place. As massive tech conglomerates continue to consolidate their grip on traditional studios, the core mechanics of the entertainment industry, from algorithmic greenlighting to the slippery slope of AI integration, are being rewritten. To make sense of these changes, I invited Matt, the host of The Town podcast, to explain it to all of us.

2:32As one of Hollywood's most deeply sourced industry insiders, Bellany has spent years documenting the collision between northern and southern California. Matt joins me now.

2:45Matt, thanks so much for being here. So I have to start with the obvious, which is artificial intelligence. You've been on top of AI in Hollywood for a very long time, and you've said multiple times that, quote, everyone is doing it, meaning everyone is using AI, which might be news to Wired readers and listeners. Matt, tell us more. What do you mean exactly by that? Okay, well, there's two types of AI, as you know. There's generative AI, which is content creation and things like that. And then there's the, what I refer to as the corporate AI, like streamlining processes and better search results and things like that.

3:22So obviously on the second one, everyone is using it. I mean, I'm not going to name a name, but I heard a very interesting story about a very prominent show runner who went into the writer's room and basically castigated her writing team for not using chat GPT to help with the process. To help with the creative process or like the admin and the bookkeeping and the... The creative process. Wow. Okay. You know, here's a scenario, suggest some jokes. Here's this, this, this. And it doesn't mean they use them. You could do the same thing with Google. You could do the same thing with... It's just better.

4:00And people are using it. I know I've talked to screenwriters who use it to suggest scenarios or to give a description of the inside of a building where they want a scenario to play out. Or things like that, that to me seem like part of the process. And you may not know this, the Writers Guild is actually okay with that. They're fine with it. As long as there is a credited writer on every script and that this process doesn't impact jobs, they're okay with the use of this technology. So that's one side. Then the other side is generative and how this is making content. And there it's a little murkier because there are a lot of studios that are purporting to create AI-generated movies, shorts, TV pilots.

4:49And I've seen a lot of them. They're not great. And I'm sure you've seen some of them. I have. They're better in animation. And I think this is where we're going to see the disruption first. But you can always kind of tell. And that's the problem when you're trying to relate to people. I can't wait to see what Elon's historically accurate version of the Odyssey looks like. Oh, I mean, it's obviously going to be spectacular. I'm sure he's hard at work on it. He's been staying up all night, all week, probably. I mean, the fact that he just said, first of all, historically accurate is hilarious for a work of fiction.

5:24But, you know, it just means it's going to be all white people. And the funny thing is, is if he tries to use or to scrape the actual version of the Odyssey, because if I don't know if you saw the headlines, a full version of the Odyssey leaked on X last weekend and before Universal could send a takedown, it was viewed like a million times. I actually had not seen that. I had not seen that. So who knows whether Grok got its hands on the actual Odyssey to train Elon's fake Odyssey, but whatever. So on the generated AI front, I think where we're seeing the biggest innovation slash disruption is in the animation world.

6:08Where visually scenes can be completed, storyboards done without the use of artists. You can extrapolate things. Doesn't mean it's the finished product, but even Netflix, they, on their earnings call this past, this past month, they said that 300 shows use generative AI. I saw that. Yeah, I saw that. And, and they're out sort of talking about that relatively loudly and freely. I'm wondering where the stigma is right now. I mean, you talked earlier about AI in the creative process. You said, I can't name names. Fair enough. It's a story about somebody castigating a writer's room. but are there members of Hollywood, actors, directors, screenwriters who are calling out AI publicly while using it privately?

6:54I mean, how much of this is still happening sort of behind closed doors in secretive circumstances? Well, obviously I don't know what everybody does behind closed doors. Well, you know what some of them do. I mean, yeah, I know what people I talk to say to me, but you know, their behavior I don't know exactly. But I do know that there is still a taint on using it. meaning, you know, a perfect example is Amazon did a whole media day where they brought in press and they have this whole AI generative studio that is being run by Albert Chang, one of their executives there. And they announced a bunch of shows, including some animation shows.

7:34And there were real creators on these shows. And almost immediately, the backlash that one of the creators got online was so crazy that he, and I don't say crazy meaning bad, I mean crazy meaning like loud, that he stepped down. So that's a real world tangible impact of AI shaming, so to speak. And that is real. I think if I had said the name of this showrunner, that showrunner would hear from people because it's seen as being part of the problem. and you know maybe that'll change Netflix got a lot of leeway on this because what did they do they bought Ben Affleck's AI company right they paid almost 600 587 million dollars and I barely knew he had an AI company until he sold it there were 16 employees yeah yeah so so you know when I asked the question, was this a$600 million press release?

8:38Because Netflix wants to get into AI. They know that Ben is someone who has a ton of credibility and cachet as a movie star, an Oscar winner, a filmmaker. And having him attached to this company buys them a lot of leeway and allows them to do things, I think, that maybe others would bristle at. But it's Ben's company. He's vouching for it. And if you look at what that product actually does is it takes the footage that you have shot and it makes it available for generative AI essentially. So it prevents you from having to do a costly reshoot. If all you need is some coverage of something, it prevents, it allows you to extend the periphery of a scene or get a circle shot when you didn't get it in camera.

9:31So it does, it's, it's, it's much more of a tool for filmmakers, or at least this is how they've presented it much more of a tool for filmmakers than something that is replacing. Cause that is the big fear in Hollywood is that this technology will replace us. And, and what was the talk of the town, so to speak, when Ben made that deal, did people scratch their heads? Did they look at him with a different point of view than they had the day before? I honestly don't think so. I think that there are a number of filmmakers that are doing this and so-called doing it the right way. Darren Aronofsky is one of them.

10:08And Ben, I think because of his credibility and because he's able to articulate very clearly, he's a very articulate guy, what he's actually doing and what he's not doing. And because of that, I think that it went over okay. And I think the biggest reaction I heard was like, holy cow,$600 million? That's a lot of money. Yeah. He's going to make more money on that than he's made on any of his movies put together. Well, he's had some, I don't know, expensive divorces. So Matt, I want to - I know the question is, did he launch it when he was married to J-Lo? I imagine their prenups probably contemplate their separate property.

10:47Well, I think they had a very expensive house they were trying to offload at one point. I'm I'm a big entertainment gossip reader. I'm curious, sort of since the spring, there have been a bunch of these deals, at least a handful, between tech firms and Hollywood, right? There was the Ben Affleck Netflix deal. There was the$75 million investment from Google deep-minded to A24, which pissed a lot of fans off. And we covered that at Wired. You had Lionsgate taking a stake in Runway, which is a big name in AI-generated video. Why is this happening now? Is it that the technology is ready? Is it that Hollywood is more receptive to this idea that potentially the technology can really have an impact on the industry?

11:28I mean, why now? It does feel a little bit like all of a sudden the floodgates are opening. Yeah, I think there's a couple things. First of all, the technology is better. Yeah. And it is applicable. And there's this fear in the C-suites of the entertainment companies of being left behind. And if you talk to people at the studios, one of the biggest problems they face is the cost of movies. The cost of movies keeps going up, whereas the box office is not necessarily covering that. I mean, if you look at in the animation space, Pixar is a perfect example. Pixar originals, they can't make them for less than$200 million.

12:09I mean, they can, but it's very difficult to make them. They're made in California with California workforce. They have their own special process that is very labor intensive. And they haven't used AI to the extent that they maybe could. So if you are looking at the box office for Pixar movies and the originals are only getting to three, four, maybe$500 million, whether they used to get to seven and eight, you got to start to look at how to bring the cost down. And that's happening around the industry. If we are looking at a new landscape where movies just aren't going to gross as much as they did, you have to look at bringing the cost down.

12:50And the guilds aren't bringing the cost down of labor. The unions are not willing to do that. So where does it come from? It comes from non-unionized labor that is, for the most part, the below-the-line people and the technology. That makes me think of Chris Nolan and the Odyssey, obviously. You know, it had a huge cast. It was made all over the world. It's making, in my view, from where I sit at Wired, I'm certainly not an expert in box office returns. It's making crazy money. And Chris Nolan, who I believe still professes to not have a phone, not surprisingly has also been critical of AI while also being open to its uses.

13:29Right. He's kind of like a fence sitter, I would argue. But he has also pointed out that younger generations have rejected a lot of quote unquote slop. Right. They're looking for authenticity. That said, are the Chris Nolans of the world to you very much going to continue to be even more the exception to the rule? Like you just cannot get a movie like that made anymore without using AI. He is a one of one at this point. Right, of course. Where he came into this situation with all the credibility and clout in the world, having won the Oscar for Oppenheimer and having made a billion dollars off that movie.

14:05The Odyssey, if it is made at all by another filmmaker, it's made at very lower cost, not 250, almost 300 million dollars. you don't get to have all those stars in it you don't you just don't get to do it but what i would argue to the studios is that is exactly why it broke through is that it smells different if you look at the trailer even if you look at everything around it it smells authored and the audience can tell when something is authored and in a world where you can create all the visual effects you want. There's something about seeing the Odyssey and knowing, because they are very good at marketing this, knowing that this is the vision of one guy who you trust and who is going to show you something real.

14:54And I say real in the sense that movies are increasingly going to be split into movies that are filmed with real people and real scenarios. And then those that are just either generative AI in practice or generative AI from the get-go. Like it's not going to, there's going to be a split between things that we find authentic and those that we just kind of passively enjoy. And just sort of consume for lack of a better term. Exactly. I'm so - That's where social is going. Sure. And the more social video goes that direction, I think the bigger the market opening is for these kinds of big, special, real movies, I think.

15:42But you have sort of the one-of-one Chris Nolan legendary filmmaker over here with The Odyssey. Then you have someone like a Kane Parsons, right, who made Backrooms, which made a ton of money for A24. I mean, it did phenomenally well. I think it was their highest-grossing film that they've ever made. And he actually came out and said he did not support their deal with Google DeepMind. I'm curious about the degree to which you think Hollywood executives care, right, about a young filmmaker with maybe nascent influence and nascent clout having something to say about that. I mean, do they give a shit?

16:21Like, does it matter to them? Well, they give a shit in the sense that studios are ultimately in the business of talent relations. They want to appeal to the kinds of people that Cain Parsons represents. The whole reason Christopher Nolan made The Odyssey and Oppenheimer with Universal Pictures was because he was at Warner Brothers for many years, and he woke up one morning in 2020, and all of their movies had been put on HBO Max. And they made a deal. The CEO at the time said, because of the situation of the world right now, all of the 2021 movies are going to be put day and date on HBO Max. I remember this.

17:02was furious. And so that was an example of the CEO thinking tech forward, we're going to give the consumer what they want. We're going to build our streaming service, even if it means grossing less at the box office. And the number one filmmaker in town took his talents down the street. And they would love to have the next Chris Nolan movie, but instead Universal, which didn't do that, they got the number one filmmaker and they have an amazing relationship with them. So I think to the extent that studios care about talent and A24 in particular very much cares about talent because they are not only appealing to those filmmakers as a business, they have a brand.

17:46A24 is a brand among people who care about movies. And this Google deal, they took a hit for that. People didn't like it. Their fans did not like it. And if that ultimately comes back to bite them and they sell fewer A24 hats or scented candles or whatever's in their merch store today. Dude, please tell me they have scented candles. Oh, they do. They do. Wow. Did not know that. Yeah, I got my podcast producer one of them. And? He said it smelled nice. All right, good. Good for them. But that's where the studios care. Now, is it going to stop them? No. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to bring down the cost of movies.

18:23And they see it as an evolution. I mean, there were people that, if you ever see the movie Babylon, there were a lot of people in Hollywood that were very apprehensive about sound in movies because it wiped out a whole generation of silent movie stars who had terrible voices and couldn't articulate themselves. Brad Pitt in that movie is a perfect example. And then there were people that didn't like television. They thought it would kill the business and the VCR and digital and streaming, all the different technological advancements that have upended Hollywood. The studios see AI as another one of those, and that if they manage it correctly, it can lead to more profitability and, in their mind, more movies and TV shows.

19:09And do you agree with that thesis? do you that's the big question i think it needs to be managed properly because if they go all in and all of a sudden the you know nbc fall lineup is a bunch of ai slop right i think you lose the differentiator ai is going to be everywhere on social and we you know is better than anyone that the tech companies are going all in on it. And you're not going to be able to distinguish what's real and what's not real online. So in the future, if you watch a movie like The Odyssey and you see dolphins coming out of the water, you're going to think that's real if the studios manage that right.

19:56And it was real in that movie. They happened to shoot on a day when dolphins were beside the boat and they got a great shot of dolphins jumping up out of the water. And that to me is the differentiator that the Hollywood studios still have. And I would hope that they won't squander it in pursuit of lowering costs. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

20:34vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

21:07Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink or a sweet vanilla, smooth caramel maybe, or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.

21:42I want to get to the labor question in all of this. You talked about animation being a place that's very, very ripe for this kind of disruption. animation and everything else in Hollywood, to what extent will unions be able to safeguard the rank and file where AI is concerned and where job loss is concerned? Well, we've seen it come up as an issue in labor negotiations twice now. Yeah. Back in 23 and then this past year as well. And the guilds have taken the position, SAG-AFTRA is not against AI. They will tell you openly, we are not against the use of AI. We are against the use of AI that causes job loss for our members.

22:29And what that means is they want to be paid. If you use a synthetic performer in a movie, there is a fee paid that makes it just as costly as using a human actor. So it's not like, let's populate our movie with AI avatars and save money. For the Writers Guild, if there is a script on which AI is used, there is going to be a credited writer. AI cannot be the author of a script for the purposes of a guild-covered movie. And that's important because ultimately, what are unions? They are for preserving jobs. And they recognize the technology is out there, but they don't want it to be a replacement.

23:14And that's where it gets to the below the line union. And it's much more difficult because some people are covered. Some jobs are covered. Some jobs are not covered. Some are members of the Teamsters. Some are members of IATSE, which is a below the line union for various roles in the business. And there are lots of jobs on animated movies that are not union covered. I see. And those are the ones that I think are the most vulnerable. I'm not prepared to go all the way to what Jeffrey Katzenberg said. A few years ago, he said something like 80 or 90 % of the workforce on an animated movie will be replaced by AA.

23:54I don't think that's going to be the case, at least not for a while. But they are going to eliminate. They already are. They already are eliminating jobs and automating things. And I wanted to ask you about what some have called an emerging gray market. We did a story about this. We published an essay by a woman who was a screenwriter, and that worked right up. And so she started finding work training AI models. I read that. And sort of contemplating, I thought it was a very funny piece. I thought it was a little bit sad and dystopian. But this idea that she is basically training herself out of a job.

24:29How much do you hear about that happening? That Hollywood workers who are maybe underemployed for a variety of reasons are actually training AI to make a living, regardless of the stigma attached to the technology right now? I mean, to their knowledge or without their knowledge? Because you could argue that every screenwriter is training AI because the tech companies are scraping at will. Oh, and we're going to get to that. We're going to get to copyright. But I guess a little bit of both, right? You mean explicitly? Yeah, explicitly. Do this for a model. Do this for money. That was an interesting essay because I had not heard about that happening.

25:03I'm sure it does happen. I'm sure that there are jobs out there where you are essentially inputting different scenarios and inputting different types of conversations in order to train AI. I don't think that's super prevalent right now. But the other side of it, there is a widespread fear, in my opinion, in the screenwriting community that the work of screenwriters is being used to train these models without their consent. A widespread fear, you said. Yeah. But isn't that fear totally well-founded? I mean, hasn't it been established that obviously all of that work, if it's public, right, would have been ingested by a model?

25:46Yes, but there's a difference between – well, first of all, I don't think if you asked Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, I don't think if you asked them on the record, do you do this, they would say yes. have you actually asked them? We've asked them about how their data sets are trained. I mean, they're trained on, on the open web. Right. But, but for the most part, most finished movies are not, you'd have to go to piracy sites. I see what you mean. I see what you mean. I understand. I don't. I, and, and certainly there are not, there are not databases where you can just get every single movie screen right.

26:32Now, there are script databases that you could probably access, but I don't believe every script that's ever been written is on the internet. I think that that's fair. And as we're talking, they must be listening to this and thinking, what an opportunity for us if we have not yet accessed all of that data. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm naive about this stuff. This was a couple of years ago, but I asked Aaron Sorkin. I had him for an interview and I had put a bunch of prompts into ChatGPT and asked it to create a scene of the West Wing set in the Trump White House. Okay. And it was so bad. It was laughably bad.