It’s a dangerous question to ask, because it forces us to examine whether the industry that celebrates bold filmmakers would still allow them to emerge. In 1992, a former video store clerk made a low-budget crime film called Reservoir Dogs . The film premiered at Sundance, disrupted the festival and announced the arrival of a singular voice. Before that, he had sold the script for True Romance . That filmmaker was Quentin Tarantino. The obvious narrative is one of talent and

If AI truly democratises filmmaking, the consequences won’t stop at the industry. They will ripple outward, into culture, identity, politics and how we understand ourselves. Because film is not just entertainment. It is our most powerful modern storytelling medium. It shapes how we see the world. How we imagine the future. How we define heroes and villains. How societies explain themselves to themselves. So the real question isn’t what happens to studios or streamers. It’s wh

Filmmaking has always been expensive. It is labour-heavy, resource-intensive and dependent on coordination at scale. Even at the lowest end — sub-£500k — making a film requires crews, equipment, locations, logistics and time. At higher levels, it becomes one of the most complex creative endeavours humans undertake. For decades, we’ve been promised that technology would democratise filmmaking. First it was cheaper film stock. Then digital cameras. Then editing software on lapt

For decades, independent cinema was financed by a delicate but functional ecosystem: international pre-sales and minimum guarantees (MGs). Sales agents would take a package — script, director and cast — to markets like Cannes or the AFM, and distributors would commit real money upfront. That capital was the engine that allowed thousands of independent films to be made every year. Today, that system has all but collapsed. And unless you attach an A-list star — a near-impossibl

Streaming giants like Netflix, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video have been pouring astronomical sums of money into single blockbuster-style films for their platforms. Movies like Netflix’s The Electric State ($320M), Heart of Stone ($200M) and Apple’s Wolves ($200M) raise an important question: why are these companies willing to invest such immense budgets into standalone films when they could be making five to ten times as many mid-budget films ($5M–$50M) with better story