The Perfect Movie - via AI?: Roland Emmerich - AI as an Opportunity for Hollywood
[17:42 Sun,10.May 2026 by Thomas Richter]
The use of AI in film production is a subject of much debate in Hollywood – and even though[the partnership between OpenAI and Disney has failed](www.slashcam.de/news/single/Ueberraschendes-Ende-fuer-Video-KI-Sora---OpenAI-zie-19882.html), there are many specialized startups promising to simplify a wide variety of tasks in film production in order to save time and money.
In an interview with the *Tagesthemen* news program, Roland Emmerich (aka the "Master of Disaster"), known for blockbusters like *Independence Day* and *The Day After Tomorrow* and the most commercially successful German director in Hollywood, has now revealed his stance on the use of AI. Emmerich is going all-in on AI for his next film, aiming to produce blockbusters that look like they cost millions of dollars for a fraction of that amount.
For his current film project, the survival/action thriller *Exodus*, he is experimenting with using the performances of real actors as a base, which are then transferred onto stylized, non-photorealistic AI characters. He intends to clarify whether this approach works through initial tests – he has not yet made a final decision regarding the ratio of real versus generated actors. When asked whether AI won't make many people who were previously necessary for film production—such as lighting technicians, camera operators, and actors—superfluous, he replies laconically: "they are in trouble..."
Creative freedom for the director
It is logical that for Emmerich, whose genre is primarily elaborate (disaster) films, the opportunity to reduce the large budgets required to realize such films via AI is attractive. For himself, Emmerich primarily sees new possibilities for visually implementing his ideas—be it camera movements that were previously impossible, realizing monumental production design for little money, or simply re-prompting a scene if he doesn't like it to try something slightly different—without the effort of an actual shoot and potential set modifications. Emmerich is particularly taken with the ability to freely set (or adjust) lighting via prompts—even for outdoor shoots—and to freely experiment with any camera movement.
However, Emmerich also sees the possibility that a film produced via AI with its typical look could trigger negative reactions from audiences who, in the face of the flood of AI images, desire more authenticity and real human actors.
In his perception, alongside all the criticism, there is a "Why not?" sentiment in Hollywood regarding the use of AI, which leverages the revolution in technology to produce films more cheaply—and films produced with such a reduced budget can then more easily recoup their costs and become profitable.
