ChristianF

After a decade in Hollywood and advertising—Super Bowl campaigns, Red Bull spots, projects with Hans Zimmer—I’ve spent the last year all-in on AI filmmaking. Here’s how the next two years of film will unfold—and what you need to know to stay ahead. 🧵👇🏼 • Summer ’25 — We’ll see the first fully AI-generated TV shows emerge. Budgets in the $100K–$200K range, financed by small studios that don’t have public shareholders and can take bigger risks. • Fall ’25 — More shows hit the market with larger budgets ($200-500K) from "smedium"-sized studios. Fully AI-generated feature films remain tough due to visual inconsistency over the runtime--the tech evolves too fast to maintain a look over 9 months. • Winter ’25 — Hollywood starts publicly talking about integrating AI into the VFX pipeline, though I still doubt a major studio will gamble on a fully AI film just yet (mainly due to quality and training data concerns). Video-to-video style transfers (e.g., turning live action into anime) will hit 95% accuracy. Expect a wave of “reskinning” existing IPs into anime format. • Spring ’26 — Film festivals begin embracing AI films in earnest. Hybrid productions rise: medium-budget projects ($300K–$2M) use AI for wide shots, exteriors, and VFX, while still relying on live action, green screen, and volume for actors. 30% of all ads are AI-generated. • Summer ’26 — Smaller studios (Lionsgate, A24, Blumhouse, Searchlight) start releasing hybrid and fully AI films. Content output spikes. The cost to produce an AI episode drops from $200K–$600K to under $100K—while still maintaining solid quality. • Fall ’26 — Fully AI-driven streaming platforms start eating into the market share of traditional streamers. Major platforms begin buying AI-native content and spin up dedicated categories. (Eventually, AI Films are just called “films” in the same way we dropped “cellular phone.”) • Winter ’26 — Top independent AI creators (like Neuralviz) build IP worth tens of millions, releasing content directly to fans à la Joe Rogan, bypassing studios entirely. AI companion apps start licensing top AI characters to integrate into daily life. A fully AI celebrity passes 50M followers. 50%+ of all ads are now created via AI. --------2027–2030-------- • Ethical training data is now solved; the models are advanced enough to create life-like fidelity with a relatively small dataset of licensed footage. • People watch more short-form narrative content than long-form. • Interactive narrative platforms rise, letting you star in media that looks like a film but plays like a game. • X, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram take more market share from Hollywood, continuing the UGC trend. LA’s grip on storytelling fades. Creators go direct. Content becomes hyper-niche. • 95% of ads are fully AI. Only the top 5% of brands still do traditional shoots. • Actors increasingly longer rely on physical looks. Everyone is cast for emotional range—think Andy Serkis--because they can put that performance on anyone's face/voice. --------2030 and beyond-------- All media—ads, films, everything—is hyper-personalized. Content automatically adapts to your favorite IPs, characters, and interests. Streaming giants make a last-ditch attempt to reclaim dominance by building out “Holodeck-style” platforms. They overspend. Meta wins. Personal note: I do believe good things will come from the democratization of filmmaking tools. But we should move forward with wide eyes—aware of the disruption ahead—and be ready to reskill, adapt, and plan accordingly. Best, -PJ