Entertainment and AI Tech News

AI-Native Studios Reshape Hollywood as Directors Split on Tech, Microdramas Surge as AI and Hollywood Bet on Vertical Video, AI-Native Films Find New Home in Dedicated Festival Circuit and other news.Anyone with a soft spot for the 1990s indie film boom will recognize the same energy in today’s AI filmmaking wild west. Back then, cheaper cameras and new distribution channels let outsiders tell stories the studios wouldn’t touch, until indie itself became too expensive for truly independent voices. Now, filmmakers, documentarians, writers, and other creative artists shut out of even the lower tiers of indie financing are building their own projects with AI as a creative tool. For the first time in years, indie film feels accessible again.AI’s footprint in film and TV is widening. Studios and startups are using generative tools to build environments, trim budgets by 20–50%, and back projects traditional financiers won’t touch. A new circuit of AI-focused festivals is offering real prize money and fast, disclosure-heavy submission processes for work that legacy festivals still won’t fully embrace. Microdramas are becoming one of the sector’s few growth areas, with U.S. revenue on track for $1.5 billion this year and per-user engagement ahead of Netflix. And a $1 billion AI studio is betting that an animated feature about a serious fart can prove AI can carry long-form, story-driven content.Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood PR consultancy Ginger Media & Entertainment, a journalist and researcher on technology and entertainment, an MFA photographer and filmmaker, and host of the podcast Digital Afterlife: Hollywood & AI Tech