Paramount Skydance CEO says AI could change filmmaking more than CGI

In short: Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison says AI may affect movies even more than CGI did, and his company is building its own AI tools.

What happened

David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, talked about artificial intelligence on the company’s latest earnings call, which is a public meeting where executives update investors on business results.

Ellison said it is “hard to imagine” AI will not have a bigger impact on the film industry than CGI. CGI means computer-made images that are added to movies, like dinosaurs or explosions that were not filmed in real life (think of it as digital special effects). He compared today’s moment to the early 1990s, when CGI and “digital composites” (stitching multiple images together so they look like one shot) helped enable movies like Jurassic Park and Terminator 2.

Ellison also pointed to film budgets. He said the original Terminator cost about $4 million to make, but making the same movie today, “shot for shot,” could cost $60 million to $70 million. He suggested AI tools could help make budgets easier to manage, which could make studios more willing to take risks on more original stories.

Ellison said AI will “significantly” reshape Paramount Skydance’s business and that the company has been developing its own AI tools. He said these tools could make content easier to produce and help projects move faster. He also said that in a world of “AI slop” (lots of low-effort material), there will still be demand for “hand-crafted storytelling,” and that AI will be a tool for artists, not a replacement.

Why it matters

If studios use AI to lower costs and speed up work, you could see more movies and shows made with smaller budgets, and possibly more experiments. At the same time, Ellison’s comments show the industry is still debating how to use AI without pushing out human creators.

Source: The Verge AI