Netflix, Spielberg and the First Major AI Film

But the question is whether it is enough to stop the development.

Because at the same time as Spielberg talks about 70 mm, the big screen, powerful projection and the shared energy of an audience, we live in another reality. A reality where people watch films on their phones. On trains. In bed. In hotel rooms. With a half-eaten pizza on the table and a pause button in their hand.

And in that reality, Netflix exists.

I do not know exactly how all the companies and corporations in the film world think. But if there is one major company that will dare to release AI-generated films on a broad scale, Netflix is one of the most likely candidates.

Not because Netflix necessarily loves film more than anyone else.

But because Netflix thinks differently.

Spielberg Defends the Ritual

Spielberg comes from a film world where the cinema was the temple itself. That was where film lived. Not only as an image, but as a shared experience. In the interview, he describes how the audience reacts together. How laughter becomes stronger when others laugh. How fear becomes greater when the whole theatre jumps at the same time. How energy is created between people who do not know each other but, for a moment, share the same reality.

It is difficult to disagree with him.

Anyone who has ever seen a truly powerful film in a cinema knows that it is different. There is something about the darkness. Something about the sound moving through the body. Something about not being able to pause, scroll or get up to make coffee without breaking the spell. The cinema demands presence.

But Netflix does not build its power on presence. Netflix builds its power on availability.

That is where the conflict lies.

Spielberg is essentially saying: film is a collective experience.

Netflix is saying: film is content that should be available when you want it, where you want it, on whatever screen you choose.

And when film becomes content, the logic behind how it is produced also changes.

Netflix Does Not Think Like Old Hollywood

Old Hollywood was built on great risks. Scripts had to be developed. Directors had to be chosen. Actors had to be contracted. Studios, sets, lighting, sound, costumes, locations, transport, catering, post-production, marketing. Everything was heavy, expensive and slow.

Netflix has already changed that model. They have built a global machine where content can be produced in different countries, in different languages, for different audience groups, and then tested against enormous user data. They know what people watch. When they stop watching. Which genres work in which countries. Which faces create clicks. Which stories keep subscribers.

This is where AI fits in.

AI is not only a new tool for creating images. It is a tool that fits perfectly into a logic where speed, volume and cost matter enormously. For a company like Netflix, the first question may not be: “Is this film according to Spielberg?”

The question is more likely: “Will people watch?”

And perhaps even more importantly: “Will they keep paying?”

It Has Already Started

This is no longer a fantasy about the future. Netflix has already used generative AI in finished visual material. In the Argentine science fiction series El Eternauta, generative AI was used for a VFX sequence involving a collapsing building. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos described AI as an opportunity to make films and series “better, not just cheaper.” He also said that the sequence could be made much faster than with traditional VFX methods.

That is an important formulation.

Because this is how transitions often happen. First, people do not say: “Now we are going to replace film workers.” They say: “We are going to help creators.” They say: “We are going to make things possible that used to be too expensive.” They say: “We are going to create better tools.”

And that is also true.

AI can help smaller productions do things they could never previously afford. A young filmmaker without a Hollywood budget can create worlds, environments and visual effects that once required millions. In that sense, AI can actually democratize film. It can open doors.

But every door that opens in one direction often closes something in another.

Because if a scene can be made ten times faster, cheaper and with fewer people, then sooner or later the economy will begin to speak its brutal language.

The First Wave Will Not Be “Pure AI Film”

I do not think Netflix, Disney, Amazon or any other major company will first launch a film with the words: “Here is our first AI-generated feature film.”

That would be too provocative.

The industry is still sensitive after the strikes in Hollywood. Actors, screenwriters, voice actors, illustrators, VFX artists and composers are already worried that their work will be reduced to data, references and synthetic copies.

So the transition will happen more softly.

First, AI will be used in the background. For concept art. For previsualization. To test different environments. To create special effects. To extend backgrounds. To improve dubbing synchronization. To make trailers. To create versions for different markets.

Then certain scenes will be AI-generated.

Then entire episodes.

Then hybrid films.

And eventually someone will release a film where almost everything has been created with AI — but the marketing will probably not call it an “AI film.” It will call it something softer. Something that sounds creative. Perhaps “next-generation cinema.” Perhaps “synthetic production.” Perhaps “AI-assisted storytelling.”

The words will be polished. The packaging will be elegant. But the content will be the same: a film where machines have done a large part of what humans used to do.

AI Feature Films Already Exist

Outside the major streaming giants, the development is moving even faster. Dreams of Violets, created by Ash Koosha, has been described as a 75-minute AI-generated feature film and gained attention in connection with the Tribeca Film Festival in 2026. According to reports, the film was made with a very low budget and with AI-generated visual elements, partly to tell a politically sensitive story without traditional filming on location.

Hell Grind, an AI-generated sci-fi thriller, has also been highlighted as an example of how far the technology has already come. At the same time, the reactions show that AI film still struggles with the human element. Movements, glances, voices and small behaviours can fall into the uncanny valley — almost right, but not fully alive.

That is where the real question of film lives.

Not in whether AI can create images.

AI can already do that.

The question is whether AI can create presence.

Film Is Not Only Image

This is where Spielberg enters the room again.

Because Spielberg knows something that technology often forgets: film is not only image. Film is timing. Breathing. Waiting. Rhythm. A glance that stays one second too long. Light coming through a doorway. A face that says nothing and still tells everything.

In the interview, he talks about light as something that draws the audience into the story. Not only as a symbol, but as direction. Human beings search for light in darkness. We look toward the exit, toward the crack, toward the opening. Light tells us where hope is.

That is what makes film more than production.

And perhaps that is exactly why AI film provokes such strong emotions. It does not only threaten jobs. It threatens the very idea that art carries traces of lived life.

When a human being creates a scene, there is experience behind it. Failures. Body. Memory. Fear. Taste. Bad decisions. Good decisions. Chance. An actor who does something unexpected. A cinematographer who finds the light. A sound technician who hears something no one else hears. A director who says: “Wait. Do it one more time, but quieter.”

AI can simulate much of this.

But simulation is not the same as experience.

But the Audience Is Not Always Romantic

At the same time, one has to be honest.

The broad audience is not always as romantic as filmmakers. Many viewers do not care how something was made. They care whether it works. Whether it is exciting. Whether it looks good. Whether it moves quickly. Whether it feels new. Whether it fills the evening.

That is why Netflix could be first.

Because Netflix’s audience is already trained in consumption rather than ritual. There is not the same demand for the sacredness of the cinema. There is a habit of browsing, testing, moving on, giving a series ten minutes and then leaving it. It is a different relationship to film.

An AI-generated Netflix film does not need to win Cannes. It needs to get enough people to press play.

That sounds cynical, but it is also reality.

And if an AI-generated thriller, horror film or science fiction series gets high viewing numbers, the next one will come quickly. Then the next. Then a local version. Then a cheaper version. Then an interactive version. Then a personalized version.

You can almost see the road ahead.

The Great Risk: More Content, Less Soul

The danger is not that AI is used. The danger is if AI is used to flood the world with content without a soul.

We already live in a time where more and more people produce more and more. Texts, images, songs, videos, reels, trailers, podcasts, synthetic voices, fake influencers. The quantity increases. But human time, attention and emotional capacity do not increase.

If AI film becomes yet another way to fill platforms with endless amounts of “content,” then film risks losing its weight. Then the story becomes just another product in the stream. Another square. Another recommendation. Another thumbnail.

It is not certain that the audience will notice immediately.

But in the long run, we notice when something is missing.

We notice when stories no longer come from real necessity, desire, experience or vision. We notice when everything is optimized but nothing burns. We notice when the images are perfect but the soul is absent.

The Great Opportunity: Those Without Money Get Tools

At the same time, there is another side.

AI can also become a liberation for people who have never been allowed into the film world. For the person who does not have contacts, capital, a studio, an agent, a producer or a distribution channel, AI can become a way to actually tell a story. A person with an idea, persistence and taste can create something that previously required an entire company.

That is where the development becomes interesting.

AI in the hands of large corporations can become industrial mass production.

AI in the hands of free creators can become a revolution.

The difference is not in the technology. The difference is in the human being behind it.

A bad storyteller does not become good because the tool is powerful. But a strong storyteller without resources can suddenly be given wings.

Perhaps that is where the real film revolution of the future exists. Not in Netflix making cheaper effects, but in people outside the systems creating their own worlds.

So What Happens Now?

I do not think old film will disappear. Spielberg will still be needed. The cinema will still be needed. The great human film experiences will still exist, perhaps even becoming more exclusive and more valuable.

But beside them, something else is growing.

AI film will not replace all film. But it will create a new category. Just as streaming did not completely kill the cinema, but changed what the cinema means. Just as digital photography did not kill photography, but changed who could take photographs. Just as the synthesizer did not kill music, but changed the soundscape.

AI will change film.

The question is not whether.

The question is who controls the change.

Is it economists who want to reduce costs? Is it platforms that want to fill catalogues? Is it technicians who want to show what systems can do? Or is it creators who have something to say and use AI as brush, camera, set design and tool?

That is where the future lies.

Final Words: If the Feeling Survives, Film Survives

Spielberg represents a film world where light falls through the doorway, where sound is built by human beings, where the audience sits together, and where film is larger than the screen. Netflix represents another world: global, fast, data-driven, available and ready to test the next production model.

Both worlds will exist at the same time.

But the decisive question will not be whether the film was made with AI or not. The decisive question will be simpler and more difficult:

Did we feel something?

If the answer is yes, the audience will accept more than the industry thinks.

If the answer is no, it does not matter how advanced the technology is.

Because the true magic of film has never lived in the camera, the screen, the algorithm or even the budget. It has lived in the meeting between the story and the human being receiving it.

And there, AI still has a great deal to prove.