What Sora AI means for Hollywood
This future is now on our doorstep.
Sam Altman’s company OpenAI just released Sora AI.
Sora is a text-to-video AI tool that can create hyper-realistic videos from a few lines of text instructions.
Check out this example from OpenAI’s website:
A stylish woman walks down a Tokyo street filled with warm, glowing, neon and animated city signage. She wears a black leather jacket, a long red dress, and black boots, and carries a black purse. She wears sunglasses and red lipstick. She walks confidently and casually. The street is damp and reflective, creating a mirror effect of the colorful lights.
Source: OpenAI
Watching these AI-generated videos is a “holy crap” moment. The world just changed.
It’s only a matter of time before we have an AI video generator that dream up a brand-new movie idea in seconds… and then tailor-make it just for you.
I’ll be able to type, “Make me a new Tarantino-style thriller starring a young Denzel Washington, set in 1950s LA…”
… and watch the movie that evening.
These text-to-video tools will also transform education. Why read about ancient Greece from a dull textbook when teachers can show you what it was like with photorealistic videos that only take 10 seconds to make? Game-changer.
Hollywood is in real trouble.
Movie execs are essentially trying to ban AI in filmmaking, as they’re worried about machines taking all the jobs.
Listen up, Hollywood: You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
As AI expert Zvi Mowshowitz told me, “Any industry that doesn’t use AI is finished. You either adopt it or die.”
If Hollywood doesn’t change, it will get steamrolled by some AI startup that can make 10X more movies for 10% of the cost.
Tools like Sora AI can also pull us out of this doom loop of endless superhero sequels.
Studios no longer make money from DVD sales. Without that cash stream, they’re choosing to only make films they know will sell at the box office.
But AI slashes the cost and time it takes to make a film. This should allow studios to take more creative risks and usher in a new golden era of creativity.
It’s up to movie studios to decide if they will act like ostriches — burying their heads in the sand and hoping AI goes away — or adopt this breakthrough technology and survive.
