If you want a clear understanding of how AI is affecting Hollywood … good luck.
Some of the industry loathes the technology, with screenwriters, directors, and actors alike vowing never to use AI in their work—or collaborate with those who do. Others are much more open to the potential for AI to act as everything from creative partner to cost-cutting engine. And a rare few, Ben Affleck included, are already making millions by capitalizing on AI’s nascent potential to (they argue) streamline and improve the filmmaking process.
At WIRED, we’re constantly doing our best to document AI’s transformational effects on the entertainment business, for better and for worse. (If you haven’t read Ruth Fowler’s recent essay for us, on going from a screenwriter to an underemployed LLM trainer, I highly recommend it.) But in an effort to get the most nuanced possible view, I wanted to talk to someone who knows the industry and its players inside and out.
Matt Belloni, a founding partner at Puck, has covered Hollywood for decades. He writes a scoopy newsletter (What I’m Hearing …) and hosts a scoopy podcast (The Town) that frequently focus on AI and Big Tech as both become increasingly dominant forces across entertainment. Belloni also happens to be a former lawyer, making him the ideal person to ask about the ongoing, and highly consequential, debates over AI and copyright, IP, and celebrity likeness.
Belloni was generous enough to give me an hour of his time, and we managed to cover all the bases—from whether Hollywood types side-eyed Ben Affleck after he sold an AI startup to Netflix for $587 million, to just how much control Big Tech companies now wield over the entertainment industry. You can read our conversation below or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
KATIE DRUMMOND: Matt, 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 [in the industry] is using AI. What exactly do you mean by that?
MATTHEW BELLONI: 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 what I refer to as the corporate AI, like streamlining processes and better search results. Obviously, on the second one, everyone is using it.
I’m not going to name a name, but I heard a very interesting story about a very prominent showrunner who went into the writer’s room and basically castigated her writing team for not using ChatGPT to help with the process.
To help with the creative process? Or the admin and bookkeeping?
The creative process. Here’s a scenario, suggest some jokes. Here’s this, this, this. It doesn’t mean they use them. You could do the same thing with Google. It’s just better, and 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 that to me seem like part of the process.
You may not know this, but the Writers Guild is actually OK with that. As long as there is a credited writer on every script and that this process doesn’t impact jobs, they’re OK with the use of this technology.
That’s one side. Then the other side is generative and how this is making content. There it’s a little murkier, because there are a lot of studios that are purporting to create AI-generated movies, shorts, TV pilots. I’ve seen a lot of them. They’re not great. They’re better in animation, and I think this is where we’re going to see the disruption first, but you can always kinda 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.