Kevin Surace argues AI could shrink film budgets from $100 million to $100 and crews by 99 percent. That would let anyone make a movie without studio backing, but it would devastate jobs for editors, cinematographers, and other crew.
For decades, Hollywood decided whose stories were worth telling. AI might finally change that for every creator who never got greenlit.
Today, a major Hollywood film will employ 300 on the low end, but often 2,000 or 3,000 or 4,000 people to make that film. And it may take 6 months of filming, and it may take a year of editing and post-production. So we're talking about a lot of jobs. And then you say, well, what are those jobs? Well, there are a lot of jobs in Hollywood that are, you know, sort of in front of the camera that people think about, but there's also a lot of jobs that are completely behind the camera, right? AI is going to go make anything you want as soon as you type it in the computer. Say, no, I want this a little more purple. Boom. I want this a little more this way. An editor— maybe you'll have an editor because maybe you'll want to stitch a lot of scenes together, but there'll be 99% less editing than there's been. How about all those CGI people, those CGI artists, which are often hundreds in a film? Probably don't need to do that kind of work, right? AI is going to generate that for us. So what happens if I don't physically need to make The big difference is instead of $100 million for a major film, it costs about $100 to make a major film.
