How Does Hollywood Really Feel About AI? It’s Complicated.

Published: September 12, 2025

Hollywood, movies, entertainment industry — Photo by Joseph Menjivar on Unsplash

By Mallory Mattingly

Is AI coming for the movies? It’s complicated.

Many filmmakers and producers at the Toronto International Film Festival pushed back at the thought of AI creating films.

At the festival, “Nia DaCosta talked about how her feelings on Ibsen animated her need to redo Hedda Gabler. Paul Greengrass left audiences breathless with his latest neo-verite adventure that has Matthew McConaughey as an embattled bus driver saving children in the 2018 Paradise wildfires. None of them mentioned AI explicitly. They didn’t have to. Their pro-human vehemence was evident in every quote and frame,” The Hollywood Reporter said.

PINOCCHIO director Guillermo del Toro did, however, voice his concerns about AI: “[We live in] a world that now wants to tell us loud and clear that art is not important; they want to insist it can be done by an app, that it can be done by anyone. We cannot allow that to happen.”

AI and entertainment continues to be a hot button topic everywhere in the industry.

A Facebook post shared to the Virginia Filmmakers and Actors group revealed that a vendor at Dragon Con was asked to leave because he was selling AI art, “which is against their policy.”

“The reason I’m sharing this here is because I’m tired of seeing AI being used in the filmmaking industry,” the account wrote. “If you can’t do something, be man enough to ask for help from someone who is trying to make a career out of this. If you need help with making a character poster or movie poster for your project, ask someone for help with making it for you who is actually skilled in that department, instead of relying on clankers to do it for you.”

“We shouldn’t take away people’s God-given gifts/ talents and allow AI to take those from them,” the post concluded.

Meanwhile, major Hollywood studios including Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery are suing AI company Midjourney for copyright infringement, suggesting that the company has trained its model on the studios’ IPs.

“The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences, bringing to life the vision and passion of our creative partners,” said a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson in a statement. “Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments.”

THE TERMINATOR director James Cameron previously said that he doubts AI could develop a “good” enough screenplay to replace human writers.

“I don’t believe that’s ever going to have something that’s going to move an audience,” he said. “You have to be human to write that. I don’t know anyone that’s even thinking about having AI write a screenplay.”

Others, though, think AI could be a boon to the industry.

Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, spoke positively about AI previously, calling the technology “the most powerful technology that our company has ever seen, including its ability to enhance and enable consumers to access, experience and enjoy our entertainment.”

THE PATRIOT director Roland Emmerich said of the tech last year, “I think it’s a tool. That’s what it is. It just makes your job as a director more easy. That’s what’s really important because it’s not like AI does everything for you. You still need to choose the right actor, shoot the right scenes, do the right thing. And then AI can really help you in doing that.”

It seems the debate around AI’s role in entertainment is far from over.

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