EXT Cemetery — night
A man is standing in an open grave. Digging. Clods of wet earth and body parts thump into the grass next to the pit. A mad scientist in a lab coat kneels near the hole, assembling the pieces of what was once a human being. Lightning flashes.
One day, perhaps, long after the film industry has imploded and flesh-and-blood actors and filmmakers have ridden off into the sunset, we may look back at Frankenstein and ponder the irony of a film about a monster created in a lab which diligently dispatches all the humans around it.
It’s movie awards season again and while there is no controversy, unlike last year, of AI-listers competing with A-listers, it’s an elephant in the room, as the fake Golden Globes after-party photos show.
It’s making directors splutter words such as “storytelling” and “actors”, forgetting there are real stars so wooden they could be used to make boats. As for storytelling, one word: Marvel.
It comes as no surprise that the confluence of greed, power and tech will do to humans what the petrol engine did to the horse, and the movie industry will not escape it, even if demand for content has never been higher, as a 2025 report by McKinsey claims.
The report found the average US human spends seven hours a day watching video across all platforms, and yet TV and film account for only 50% of total viewership. The rest is “social content”.
Film jobs such as sound mixing, colour grading, special effects and scriptwriting are already threatened by AI. Now, thanks to the arrival of artificial filmmaker Sora, directors and actors may join them on the scrap heap because cheaper, less stroppy “talent” is only a couple of mouse clicks away.
So goodnight and good luck, then … and remember, at least there can only ever be one Boris Karloff.
