YouTube at the movies

Summary

Podcast Summary: Today, Explained — "YouTube at the Movies" (June 12, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Today, Explained dives into a surprising shift in Hollywood: the rise of YouTube creators making blockbuster films and what that means for the film industry's future. Hosts Sean Rameswaram and guest Steven Zaitchick (Senior Editor of Tech and Politics at The Hollywood Reporter) discuss how Youtubers like Markiplier, Cory Barker, and Kane Parsons have disrupted traditional movie-making and distribution, and how both YouTube and AI are rapidly transforming Hollywood.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The New Wave of YouTube-Driven Blockbusters ([02:11])

• Iron Lung by Markiplier, Obsession by Cory Barker, and Backrooms by Kane Parsons—three low-budget horror movies from YouTube creators—recently caused a sensation at the box office.
• Markiplier's Iron Lung was self-financed and distributed, making nearly $50 million globally ([02:23]).
  • “He self-financed this and self-distributed it, which is not normal at all.” — Steven Zaitchick ([02:23])
• Obsession became Focus Features’ highest grosser; Backrooms topped indie titles like Lady Bird and Midsommar ([03:13]).
• These films aren’t just extensions of YouTube content—production values rival traditional Hollywood studio films.

2. What Sets These Creators Apart ([04:59])

• YouTube creators possess two critical talents:
  • Deep understanding of imagery and storytelling (universal filmmaker skills).
  • Intimate knowledge of their audience—direct feedback through comments informs pivots and improvements ([05:45]).
    • “People are really smart. They'll pick up on things you didn't even intend, and you just kind of learn, like, okay, a modern horror audience is actually very smart, so let's not treat them like they're dumb.” — Sean Rameswaram & Steven Zaitchick ([05:45])
• Generational divide: Kane Parsons is 20, Cory Barker late 20s, Markiplier late 30s.

3. Are These Movies Actually Good? ([06:21])

• They're not just successful due to creator brand loyalty; reviewers and audiences praise distinct visions and innovative storytelling.
  • “Each of these films has a vision. Now, it may not be everyone's vision, but…it’s not like the movies are doing well simply because of their filmmakers.” — Steven Zaitchick ([07:03])

4. True Disruption: Distribution, Financing, and Movie Theaters ([08:09])

• Markiplier’s approach:
  • No marketing support, self-distributed in theaters, exclusive YouTube rental/sale ([08:19], [09:18]).
    • “Iron Lung is now available exclusively on YouTube. Five bucks to rent, 10 bucks to buy.” — Sean Rameswaram ([09:18])
  • Profit-sharing with cast and crew.
• Studios have historically scouted fresh talent at festivals—now they're watching YouTube ([09:32]).
  • “Let's not assume the business is just going to continue as usual with just one more new way to find talent.” — Steven Zaitchick ([09:32])
• Movie theaters still attract creators for their prestige and communal viewing, despite industry struggles ([11:19]).

5. Hollywood’s Embrace of YouTube and the Theatre Experience ([11:19])

• Theaters act as social hubs for fans, extending the communal energy of events like Vidcon into physical spaces.

6. The Next Disruption: AI in Hollywood ([16:01])

• Big-name directors are openly experimenting:

  • Martin Scorsese—uses AI for storyboarding and visualizations ([16:48]).
    • “If you have a tool like this, you could figure it out much, much quicker and you could save production time and also less wear and tear on the crew.” — Steven Zaitchick ([16:37])
  • James Cameron advocates for AI to cut VFX costs without job loss ([18:46]).
  • Darren Aronofsky made an AI-generated series, with mixed reception ([20:48]).
    • “Look at the way Benjamin Franklin looks in this fucking trailer. He looks like Gollum if he went to a boarding school.” — Steven Zaitchick ([21:10])

• Debate over AI's role:

  • Some, like South Park’s Matt Stone, only want AI for tasks humans can’t do ([19:40]):
    • “I don't want it to do anything that humans can do, because the reality is, like, we have humans who can do that well, we don't need a technology to just kind of replace them.” — Matt Stone via Steven Zaitchick ([19:40])
  • Others, like Guillermo del Toro and Vince Gilligan (“made by humans” credit), are staunchly anti-AI ([24:04]).
    • “Fuck AI. He said it multiple times. I don't know of any artist that raised their hand and said, we need AI. Nobody.” — Steven Zaitchick ([24:04])

7. The Industry’s Uncertain Future ([25:03])

• Steven’s outlook: AI will transform or “slay” significant portions of the traditional industry, especially physical sets and commodified content.
• He predicts that within a decade, the majority of content will be AI-assisted, though human-driven vision will persist for high-end projects ([25:24]).
  • “In 10 years, is more content we watch going to be AI led or human led? I suspect it's going to be more AI than human, at least in terms of how assisted it is.” — Steven Zaitchick ([26:07])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On YouTube Disruption:
  “YouTube, that's the kind of thing where YouTube lets you keep a very big chunk of that change…He put it out in theaters on his own and put it on YouTube, kind of kept it exclusive there.” — Steven Zaitchick ([09:32])

• On Generational Talent:
  “These are creators who are used to making things on a budget. If you go on YouTube and you watch what content creators are doing, you don't need to spend a lot of money to make it look good.” — Steven Zaitchick ([04:35])

• On AI’s Impact:
  “That's not even a slippery slope. That is like a flat wall that is right down to…Alright, so what's next?” — Steven Zaitchick ([17:29])

• On Legacy vs. Change:
  “There is a pretty big camp in legacy Hollywood at least and pretty high end filmmakers who…will say I'm not really gonna use it. But…will they be dominant? I'm not so sure.” — Steven Zaitchick ([24:38])

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Important Topic Timestamps

• [02:11] — Introduction to guest and the YouTube movie phenomenon
• [02:23] — Box office success and who these creators are
• [04:59] — Why these creators are thriving; their unique skills
• [06:21] — Are the movies good? Brand vs. vision
• [08:09] — Real disruption: distribution, business models
• [09:18] — Markiplier’s exclusive YouTube model and profit sharing
• [11:19] — Why young creators still want theaters
• [16:01] — AI enters the picture: Scorsese, Cameron, Aronofsky
• [19:40] — Philosophical debate on AI in the arts
• [24:04] — The pushback: Del Toro and “made by humans” creators
• [25:03] — Will AI be Hollywood’s “savior or slayer”?

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Tone & Style

• The conversation balances admiration and skepticism, mixing pop culture savvy (“lightsabers and superheroes,” [06:50]) with serious industry analysis.
• Quotable candor from both guests and the creative community, frequently peppered with humor and real talk (“He looks like Gollum if he went to a boarding school.” [21:10])
• In-depth, but accessible for listeners both inside and outside Hollywood.

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Conclusion

Hollywood is experiencing a serious transformation as a new breed of filmmakers emerges from YouTube, bringing a disruptive mix of audience understanding, storytelling, and business savvy. At the same time, the embrace (and anxiety) over AI’s role in movie-making is forcing the industry to reckon with the future of art and work on screen.

As Steven Zaitchick concludes, we’re poised between preservation of cinematic tradition and boundless technological innovation. In ten years, Hollywood—and its viewers—may hardly recognize itself.

Transcript

[Sean Rames]

What are you up to this weekend? There's a new Spielberg out that's supposed to be nuts.

[Steven Zaitchick]

What are you gonna do? Full disclosure to the whole world all at once.

[Sean Rames]

If the Mandalorian and his little buddy Grogu didn't already do it, Disclosure day will officially kick off a big blockbuster summer for the movies. No one could stand between my men. We've got sir no. 1.

[Steven Zaitchick]

And home.

[Sean Rames]

We've got Woody and Buzz.

[Steven Zaitchick]

We're finding more abandone toys each day.

[Sean Rames]

We've got Spider Man, Supergirl. We've got one with Anne Hathaway in Dinosaurs. But all those big ones aren't necessarily what's got Hollywood abuzz. People are talking about movies with much smaller budgets. In particular Iron Lung, Obsession and Backrooms. Because they all have one thing in common. And if you don't know what it is, we'll tell you on today Explained from vox.

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[Sean Rames]

so good, so good, so good.

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[Steven Zaitchick]

Okay.

[Sean Rames]

Steven Zaitchick is the senior editor of tech and politics at the Hollywood Reporter. And we asked him here to tell us more about what Iron lung obsession and backrooms have in common. And what they have in common is YouTube.

[Steven Zaitchick]

By the way, it's been a pretty rollercoaster few weeks in Hollywood in terms of what's been taking the box office by storm. And that is a number of youtubers. Really starts back in January with a creator named Markiplier who did a film called Iron Lung. You did test this thing, right? This is the test. This movie made 21 million dollars opening worldwide. Markiplier's Iron Lung has now almost earned 50 million worldW self financed this and self distributed it, which is not normal at all. But the two big ones in the last few weeks are Obsession by Cory Barker. I love you Song song song song so much. That blew the doors off the box office and has now become the highest grossing movie all time in the history of focus features. And then not long after that, we had Kane Parsons or aka Kane Pixels, who many listeners may know he's got 3 million followers on YouTube for his creation Back Rooms. I Found a place and he put it all together, actually created a new film. And the film also, I think will become, if it isn't already the highest grossing movie ahead of films like Lady Bird and Midsommar. And I think Marty supreme was the last dabino to fall for a 24. Going to be higher grossing than all of them. So pretty big revolution going on.

[Sean Rames]

Now people who hear YouTube creators are making movies might think that these movies look like the Joe Rogan experience, but these movies do not look like the Joe Rogan experience. In fact, if you didn't know that they were affiliated with some sort of YouTube creator, you might just assume they're your typical studio horror movie, right?

[Steven Zaitchick]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, they're low budget. Horror, obviously, Shawn, is a genre that's pretty time tested in Hollywood. You can go back to paranormal activity about 17, 18 years ago. Something's here.

[Sean Rames]

I feel it breathing on me.

[Steven Zaitchick]

Go back to the Blair Witch Project almost three decades ago, shaky camera. Some of your OG listeners might even remember seeing that in theaters. And so low budget horror is a huge genre for Hollywood. People are used to seeing these movies that don't need any kind of fancy effects, don't need big stars. And you know, these are creators who are used to making things on a budget. If you go on YouTube and you watch what content creators are doing, you don't need to spend a lot of money to make it look good. And so you kind of marry the expectation of the audience with the talent of the filmmakers and you get this exact elixir that you're describing.

[Sean Rames]

And what is the talent of these particular YouTubers? Filmmakers, Markiplier, Curry, Barker, Kane, Pixels. What are they particularly good at? Because I assume they're not deeply experienced filmmakers. Aren't some of these guys really young?

[Steven Zaitchick]

Yeah, well, Kane is actually 20, Mark's a little bit older, he's in his late 30s, and Corey, I think is in his mid to late 20s. You know, they're good at two things, one of which is kind of a staple for any filmmaker, any person who's ever directed a movie at Sundance. And that's just understanding the power of images and the power of storytelling. Some of them are a little bit more. Maybe a little more visual. Some are a little more narrative. But, like, they get that. The other thing they understand that a lot of filmmakers don't or just don't have the opportunity to get is their audience.

[Sean Rames]

YouTube taught me through the comments that

[Steven Zaitchick]

people are really smart. They'll pick up on things you didn't even intend, and you just kind of learn, like, okay, a modern horror audience

[Sean Rames]

is actually very smart, so let's not treat them like they're dumb.

[Steven Zaitchick]

You know, when this film comes out and when it's in theaters, I probably won't be going out and around. I'll be online monitoring. Being on that wavelength has been very helpful, I'd say, for just sort of being respectful to the audience. They know what they respond to. They know what they don't respond to. If something isn't working, they could pivot on a dime. And so, you know, that's something. Something that, again, I think Hollywood is probably ripe for that kind of sort of innovation, if you will. And these guys are bringing it to him in spades.

[Sean Rames]

And are they making good movies, or is it just that, hey, our audience is loyal and they'll do whatever we ask them to do?

[Steven Zaitchick]

You know, it's funny. Before these movies came out, I kind of had the same question, and I'm like, look, is this. Is this just sort of a brand play? And is this just. We'll follow you to. To wherever. Now, I should say there are plenty of franchises, film franchises that studios put out, which we will remain nameless because, you know, I don't want to upset any of my sources, but, yeah, I think listeners can use their imagination on what those are.

[Sean Rames]

I'm hearing like lightsabers and superheroes, like, crashing into stuff.

[Steven Zaitchick]

I can neither confirm nor deny what

[Sean Rames]

you're talking about, John.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I am a flop.

[Steven Zaitchick]

But look, a lot of franchises can come up with great installments, can be long in the tooth and still get fans, even when they're not as great anymore. That all happens. I think that is a big fear here, that this is just the filmmaker is his or her own franchise. I think what's been striking is that each of these films has a vision. Now, it may not be everyone's vision, I'll tell you. Just kind of from my own perspective. You know, you watch Obsession. That feels to me like a fairly traditional narrative thriller. And it plays that way.

[Sean Rames]

I love you.

[Steven Zaitchick]

You Saw the reviews kind of reflect that you watch backrooms if you're not maybe extremely online, if you're not a alpha gen Z type person who's kind of used to seeing these like, few minute, mysterious memes. It's beautiful. Am I right? Hello. That movie to me resonated in a different way. But what's been striking to me is that it's not like the movies are doing well simply because of their filmmakers. They're doing well because of their vision. Whether you like that vision, of course, that's up to you.

[Sean Rames]

And you called it a disruption. The success of these three films and in some cases the enormous success of, say, backrooms. Tell me about the disruption.

[Steven Zaitchick]

We'll start with the first one that came out back this winter, the markiplier film Iron Lung. This guy self distributed his movie. Now, admittedly he has 38 million followers or something in that vicinity. And he's been doing this a long time.

[Sean Rames]

I make an ungodly amount of money. Feels unfair. My channel has had 17 billion views. That is. That's insane.

[Steven Zaitchick]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. But to really go out there with no marketing support whatsoever and just kind of say, I'm going to put in theaters myself. He made, I think $40 million here in the US, $10 million overseas.

[Sean Rames]

You had a unique profit sharing model with the cast and crew. So I basically, I took their salary that I paid them for the production days. I said, like, I'm going to apply that again as a bonus. And so just like whatever your salary was, it's now.

[Steven Zaitchick]

And then the other thing he did that was super interesting is he said, you know what, Instead of selling it to a Netflix or an HBO or one of these, you know, platforms that has been buying movies for years, I'm gonna put it out myself on my platform on YouTube.

[Sean Rames]

Iron Lung is now available exclusively on YouTube. So you can click the link that's up there, down there, or even on my face to go find it on YouTube Movies. Don't know what YouTube Movies is. It's where you can buy or rent movies on YouTube. Didn't know you could do that. Well, you can.

[Steven Zaitchick]

Five bucks to rent, 10 bucks to buy. And again, you know, YouTube, that's the kind of thing where YouTube lets you keep a very big chunk of that change. Obviously their business model is not to buy stuff, buy libraries the way Netflix does. So he's kind of a disruptor to me. Markiplier on both ends, where he put it out in theaters on his own and put it on YouTube, kind of kept it exclusive there. If we're talking about Barker and Parsons, I would say they're partial disruptors. I mean, certainly just the very fact that they made these movies and that distributors took a chance on them in the way that they did is disruptive. But I would caution folks who say, and believe me, I've encountered it even at my own publication and plenty of sources, too, are like, well, this is just the new film school, you know, this is just people, you know, or the new film festival world, where it's like, okay, we've always found, you know, the industry, the machine, if you will, has always found, like, talent in new places. And this is just another one. Let's not assume the business is just going to continue as usual with just one more new way to find talent. I'm saying there's going to be new modes of distribution, new modes of financing, new modes of marketing that go beyond just, hey, do you find your director at a festival or online?

[Sean Rames]

Everything seems to be trending to YouTube or bending to YouTube's will be it, you know, sports, or be it podcasts or even like, TV. Now with YouTube, TV, YouTube is the place to be. Why do these young filmmakers want to be in movie theaters? I mean, I feel like we on this show even have been talking for years about whether movie theaters are gonna make it. We have any ide. How many theaters in the country across the world have permanently shut down? And now it looks like they might be having a big year with Odyssey and Toy Story and Dune. But why do these guys want to be in that space?

[Steven Zaitchick]

There is money. People are paying 15, 20 bucks a pop. But there's also a lot of prestige and a lot of audience value that comes with it. I mean, I talked to an executive at YouTube about this, and they were saying that, look, we've seen this with creators for years. Their fans want to gather. You know, they may want to gather at vidcon, they may want to gather at a concert. They may want to gather at a book signing, at some other kind of creator event and theaters, even though obviously the creator is not physically there with them, is just an extension of that same idea.

[Sean Rames]

Okay, so Hollywood is Learning to Love YouTube. And after a lot of kicking and screaming, it's getting ready to friend AI too. We'll do that. Disruption with Steven next on Today. Explained. Support for the show today comes from Quince. There's no better time than today to update your wardrobe. And it's not because your clothes aren't fabulous, not because you're not fabulous. You're fabulous. But look. Look outside. Summer is here or it's, you know, been here in some cases and you want pieces that feel easy, comfortable and still put together. That's where Quince comes in. They focus on high quality essentials that can make you feel amazing, quite frankly. Well made Basics but without the luxury markup. Claire White has tried Quintz. I've gotten a lot of great summer pieces from Quince, from their basic T shirts to their linen button downs. They have a really wide range of awesome summer staples that will stay in my closet the whole season. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com explained for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com explained for free shipping and 365 day returns, Quince.com explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Chime. And if you're thinking about, you know, your doorbell, then you got another thing coming. Because sometimes banking can feel like going through an obstacle course. Constantly trying to avoid overdraft, fees, minimum balance requirements and monthly charges. Chime wants to make things easier. Chime is changing the way people bank by offering rewarding fee free banking banking built for you because why should you pay to get your own money? A question as old as time and Chime wants to answer it. Chime isn't a traditional bank in that they won't charge you overdraft and monthly fees and they even have thousands of fee free ATMs for you to use built for you. Not the 1%, the pesky 1%. Chime is not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. You can head to chime.com explained that is chime.com explained it only takes a few minutes to sign up.

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[Sean Rames]

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[Steven Zaitchick]

I don't know what.

[Sean Rames]

Today it's plain things she's doing, she's disrupting. Let's start with Martin Scorsese.

[Steven Zaitchick]

Marty, first of all, can I say you're the reason I'm in this business? Who the fuck are you and what are you trying to say?

[Sean Rames]

There was a big actors strike just a couple years ago in Hollywood, and one of the biggest issues was AI. And AI was the boogeyman who was gonna, you know, come for all of our identities and our intellectual property. And now you've got like, the most perhaps illustrious living director saying, you know, I'm gonna mess with AI.

[Steven Zaitchick]

If you have a tool like this, you could figure it out much, much quicker and you could save production time and also less wear and tear on the crew.

[Sean Rames]

How did that happen? What happened? What is he saying? What's Marty saying?

[Steven Zaitchick]

All right, so I have kind of two thoughts about this, and they're sort of opposite. One is like, everybody needs to chill. And the other is everybody can freak the fuck out. No, look, here's the thing with Scorsese. The part where everybody needs to chill is this guy's been using tech for a while. Anyone who saw the Irishman was it seven years ago now knows how he used the aging technology. He was on the cutting edge of that.

[Sean Rames]

De Niro, who was 75, and Pacino,

[Steven Zaitchick]

a sprightly 79, appear at different ages

[Sean Rames]

spanning decades, which is accomplished with VFX and makeup.

[Steven Zaitchick]

But it's the digital de aging work

[Sean Rames]

that has already been the focus of much curiosity.

[Steven Zaitchick]

I think it's the first time this kind of thing is done for this type of narrative film, this type of character film. For the most part, actors are okay with that. So in that regard, I think people may need to chill, where they may be needing to freak out and freaking out even more than they already are. Is Scorsese says, yeah, I'm going to use this tech to figure out my films from a storyboarding perspective. This conveys a cinematic. A cinematic intelligence. Not necessarily painting, not necessarily literature. You know, it's cinema. So that's the great thing about this tool, the thing that's kind of crazy about it. And I talked. I have some sources on this front who've been warning about this for a while is like, those are people's jobs, like, in livelihoods. Like, they're concept illustrators and designers and folks who are kind of, you know, figuring out the look and feel of a film long before the first camera starts rolling. That is a whole class of job in Hollywood. What he's essentially saying is, like, we don't need this group of people anymore, and we can automate that. And I think once you start automating that part of the process, what you're really saying is, nothing is off limits. And that's not even a slippery slope. That is like a flat wall that is right down to. All right, so what's next?

[Sean Rames]

And it's not just Marty. I mean, there are other names in Hollywood who are saying, yeah, AI, let's. Let's engage. Who are they?

[Steven Zaitchick]

Yeah, well, look, you know, Jim Cameron, I mean, I think, predated Scorsese by a couple of years. If we want to continue to see the kinds of movies that I've always

[Sean Rames]

loved and that I like to make and that I will go to see big FX heavy, you know, CG heavy films, we got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half. Totally.

[Steven Zaitchick]

Now, that's not about laying off half the staff at a VFX company. That's about doubling their speed to completion on a given shot. Right. With the Brutalist and Brady Courbet in the Oscar race, all that was used for. He used it for a little bit of, like, accent tinkering so Adrien Brody could sound more Hungarian. I actually talked to Matt Stone, he and Trey Parker, the South park guys, using it in partnership to do things we haven't seen done before. There's a Trump deepfake they used on their own show. Hi, kids. I'm Donald Trump, your president, and I'm gonna read you a story. I mean, there is a lot of stuff coming in from all angles. I think what we need to do, Sean, is just distinguish it between, you know, where are we automating art and where are we taking something that could be done by humans and is just being done either just as well or More likely not as well by machines to save money or for whatever reason. And that, to me, you know, whether you want to call it slop or just kind of like, you know, the insidification trend like that, to me, is where we really have to be careful. Matt Stone said to me, he's like, I don't want it to do anything that humans can do, because the reality is, like, we have humans who can do that well, we don't need a technology to just kind of replace them. I want to see it do something that a human can't do. Like, that feels like the tool aspect of it and not the automation replacement aspect. So I just. I don't know. I guess AI gets all sort of lumped into the same bucket in Hollywood, but I feel like there are distinctions.

[Sean Rames]

You know, he's no Martin Scorsese, but Darren Aronofsky, who people love, you know, he's behind movies that you may have seen like.

[Steven Zaitchick]

Like.

[Sean Rames]

Like Noah or the Whale or many years ago, Requiem for a dream P.I. i think he made a fully AI movie. Right?

[Steven Zaitchick]

Did.

[Sean Rames]

Did anyone see it?

[Steven Zaitchick]

Did anyone like it? Well, Aronofsky's a fascinating case, and as you noted, I mean, he's a great filmmaker. Black Swan, perhaps his biggest hit, and just beloved for the kinds of movies. Mother, a favorite of mine. I mean, he is an incredible filmmaker. What he decided to do was basically he wanted to do historical reconstructions about the Revolutionary War and our founding fathers and mothers. And he partnered with Time magazine and he kind of created this web series called on this Day that essentially, in honor of America's 250th, went back and recreated moments of American independence. And he said, I'm going to do it all in model. In America, the law is king. Now. He got pilloried online when it came out this winter. Look at the way Benjamin Franklin looks in this fucking trailer. He looks like Gollum if he went to a boarding school. His entire career about humanity. Let's strip it away. I have lost all my respect for Darren Aronofsky. Some of it was very uncanny. Valley. Ish. We are now the troops of the United Colonies of North America. And look, to me, he was trying something that. I think it was like, the greatest work. Was it his greatest work? Far from it on either score. That said, are there going to be filmmakers, young filmmakers, people who don't have the budget, people who are starting out, who literally would not have the chance to make this movie, who make something super cool in model, and maybe it leads to something else, or maybe it's just interesting on its own. I think that will happen too. So both things can be true.

[Sean Rames]

That's, I guess what's more interesting here. Maybe the great innovation won't be coming from Martin Scorsese, who I think is like well into his 80s. Jim Cameron, who's getting a little tired with those Avatar movies, or an Aronofsky who's always been interested in trying new things. But maybe it's gonna be coming from someone who doesn't have the cachet, doesn't have any funding, who really just starts innovating with these tools.

[Steven Zaitchick]

Well, it's interesting. At the Hollywood Reporter we did an AI issue and then one of my colleagues interviewed Gossip Goblin, who some listeners may know he's got about a million plus followers online. I know you, boss. No, I don't think so. He's a pure AI creator, kind of a genre Guillermo, Guillermo del Toro type, but using AI, not really my speed. It's kind of very baroque, but there's real vision. He spends months storyboarding, like hitting plot points, outlining, and then eventually, you know, shooting, which again is a misnomer, but like generating these scenes and these moments in the model. We're not encumbered by the fact that like we would need to raise, you know, 50 to $200 million to tell this story. You know, there is an argument that someone like that is going to emerge and do they exist only kind of in this online AI film world? Do they cross over? I don't know. But certainly there's a lot of potential there. I think this trend of creator driven filmmaking and AI efficiency are going to merge and who the hell knows what's going to emerge? But it's going to be fascinating.

[Sean Rames]

You know, it's funny you mentioned Guillermo del Toro because I believe he is one of the holdouts here, right? He's a filmmaking purist who says, get that AI away from me. It's giving me the ick. Is he increasingly alone in that ideology?

[Steven Zaitchick]

You know, it's funny, I've interviewed Guillermo about this and you know, he has come out and said, very eloquent guy, fuck AI. He said it multiple times. I don't know of any artist that raised their hand and said, we need AI Nobody. Like, you know, somebody that. Somebody that gets into the middle of the party and now it wants to be applauded for. If you look at some other big creators, Vince Gilligan, who of course did Breaking Bad and now has Pluribus on Apple tv, in fact, I think he's got a little credit line at the end of Pluribus saying made by humans. I mean these are people who are drawing lines in the sand, very established people. And I don't know, are they alone? Maybe, maybe not. I think there is a pretty big camp in legacy Hollywood at least and pretty high end filmmakers who you know, will say I'm not really gonna use it. But you know, you see that with technology in general. So I think there's that camp is gonna be significant. But will they be dominant? I'm not so sure.

[Sean Rames]

Well, your piece about AI in Hollywood for the Hollywood Reporter was called Savior or Slayer. What AI is doing to Hollywood. Unfortunately I got to the end of it and you never clearly said whether it was Savior or Slayer, but that's okay, cause maybe you didn't come up with that headline, but can I ask what the vibe is out there?

[Steven Zaitchick]

Yeah, I cannot even claim any plausible deniability there, Sean. Cause I did come up with that headline mostly cuz I like the rhyme. But like any good news analysis, essay writing journalist, I gave y' all sighs and left you completely unsatisfied with what the answer is. I think where I ended up is I think it is going to slay huge parts of the industry or at least transform them. I think a lot of physical sets will not be the same and I think a lot of again, call it human slop or call it more commodity content. I think we'll have a strong, strong AI component. Do I think that's going to happen for every one of those shows or movies or let alone for the higher, more turd driven ones? Absolutely not in five years. And then in 10 years is more content we watch going to be AI led or human? Led. I suspect it's going to be more AI than human, at least in terms of how assisted it is. That doesn't mean there isn't a human at the helm. But like, in terms of like was there AI involved in the making of this episode or this film? And to a pretty significant extent, I think more often than not, the answer in a few years is going to be yes.

[Sean Rames]

Steven Zychik, as you heard, writes for the Hollywood Reporter, but he also has a substack if you're into that sort of thing. It's all about tech and AI and it's called Mind and iron. Peter Balin on Rosen was our mind today. Jenny Lawton was our iron. Patrick Boyd and David Tadashore were not only in the mix, but on it. Gabriel Donatov was on fax. Ariana Espuru Dustin De Soto, Kelly Wessinger, Hadi Mwagdi, Danielle Hewitt and Miles Bryant also make the show. Avishai Artsy, Aminal Saadi, Jolie Myers and Miranda Kennedy help run it. Breakmaster Cylinder scores Noel King is my co star. I'm Sean Ramis. Room Today Explained is distributed by wnyc. The show is a part of the Vox Media Podcast network, which you can learn more [e-mail] and if you don't like hearing ads on this show, you can get around them by going to vox.commembers

[Steven Zaitchick]

Sam.