Hollywood's AI Reversal: Generative Tools Become the Entry Ticket

Netflix reported that roughly 300 of its programs have used generative AI in their production process this year, and the industry that picketed against the technology in 2023 now teaches it in its top film schools. That reversal is the story behind Hollywood's uneasy embrace of AI — a shift educators call an opening for newcomers and skeptics call a shortcut that threatens craft.

The numbers show how fast the money has moved. Earlier this year, Netflix bought Ben Affleck's AI company, InterPositive, per a Los Angeles Times report. The 2026 Disney Accelerator has backed five AI startups. Google has invested in indie studio A24 to develop AI-powered technologies for filmmakers — a contribution of roughly $75 million, in line with past investments by other financial backers.

How did educators get here first?

In fall 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public, Justin Trevor Winters — a screenwriter and professor at Loyola Marymount University — uploaded some of his screenwriting lectures to guide an AI model while struggling with a logline for a reimagining of "Popeye the Sailor Man" set in 1930s Prohibition-era Florida, told through the eyes of a second-generation Afro-Cuban Olive Oyl. Within an hour he landed the logline. Within a few weeks, the project sold.

He shared the tool with his students immediately. "It wasn't like, all of a sudden, the students became amazing screenwriters," he said. "But what I found was there were stronger concepts and stronger loglines because of it, and my students were excited about the results."

Less than a year later, Winters stood on the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America picket lines during Hollywood's dual strikes, surrounded by signs about AI destroying creativity. "My students, who I had been teaching all this technology to, were now confused," he said. "They were like, 'We don't understand. Now the industry is telling us we can't use it.'"

Takeaway: the people teaching AI in classrooms were the same people marching against it on the picket lines — and the contradiction has not been resolved.

Who is admitting to using AI?

Dara Resnik — a writer whose credits include "Pushing Daisies," "Castle," "Jane the Virgin" and "Daredevil" — wrote a Substack post earlier this year titled "Everyone Is Lying: Including Me." It confessed that an industry veteran uses AI "quietly and effectively."

"The uncomfortable reality is that usage is pervasive, and most people know it and are scared to name it. It's time to name it," she wrote.

"A lot of people eviscerated me for that Substack," she told The Times. "Many also applauded and said, 'Yay, I'm glad someone's saying it.'"

Resnik, who teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, sets her own boundaries: she will not use AI on work she is hired to produce. For her own projects, she uses it to ideate medical scenarios she later fact-checks with physicians, or to brainstorm at 1 a.m. when writer friends are unavailable. "The more we don't talk about AI, the more people are going to use it unethically," she said.

Her caveat matters: she worries about warnings that AI could put humanity at risk, and she concedes only that those who refuse it will struggle in a hyper-competitive industry — not that the risk is small.

What are the schools doing?

Formal training has moved faster than the industry's official posture:

• NYU's Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center hosts a six-week "AI for Visual Storytelling" workshop.
• USC runs an "AI for Media & Storytelling" initiative covering generative AI's impact on journalism and cinema.
• Winters teaches LMU's popular "Producing and Screenwriting With AI" course and is building a new department, Creative Technology and Innovation, targeted for fall 2027.
• He also created Curious Refuge's 54-lecture AI screenwriting course.

Does AI replace craft?

Every educator in the story says no — with evidence that cuts both ways. Fred Grinstein, who teaches cinematic AI at USC and Chapman University, used Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, with his co-writer: they fed it a 50-page research document and transcripts of Zoom brainstorming sessions, re-prompted and polished, and got a poignant flashback scene neither had written — in a story based on his co-writer's life.

"I think a lot of people calm themselves down, saying it's just a tool," said Grinstein, co-founder of the AI filmmaking community Machine Cinema. "But you're not letting your imagination run wild enough by [merely] calling it a tool." He calls AI an active collaborator — a claim worth stress-testing, since the output still depended on 50 pages of human research.

Clayton Colmon, director of curriculum design for online learning at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts & Sciences, teaches a summer high school program, "Writing & Research in the Age of AI Academy." His warning is blunt: relying on AI too early can prevent beginners from finding their unique point of view, because AI flattens distinct voices into generic storytelling. "We often have an abundance of intelligence, but not as much wisdom," he said.

Winters puts a number on the split: "this is 80 to 90% craft. You are basically taking a normal screenwriting course I usually teach, but I'm going to give you 10% that will be your superpower, once you've understood the craft and mastered it."

Takeaway: the consensus position is that AI accelerates established skills but cannot substitute for the years of practice that build them.

What has it done for students?

Winters cites results from two years of teaching the course. One student used generative AI tools to create an animated short that led to multiple industry meetings and job offers. Another entered knowing nothing about AI and left the 15-week class with a short film that got him hired immediately upon graduation. Winters also uses Midjourney, the text-to-image generator, for pitch decks — placing an envisioned actor in period wardrobe and location — and saw higher production value in students' decks after sharing the technique.

Resnik frames the access argument in her Substack: "storytelling is human instinct, not a credential. AI is one more way for people who don't live in L.A., don't have access to great teachers, don't have time to dedicate themselves entirely to craft because they have to earn a living — to learn to write and present better."

Grinstein goes further: writers willing to work across the production pipeline, learn union regulations and protect their intellectual property have "never been more empowered to be a writer-director in terms of the way these tools can pre-visualize for you."

What the enthusiasts do not quantify is how many of these early wins translate into sustained careers in an industry still gripped by mergers, layoffs and runaway production. Grinstein's closing advice leans into the uncertainty: "I think this is a time to lean in, experiment, wonder out loud, maybe even enjoy how crazy this life of creativity can be."