Hollywood cozied up to AI in 2025 and had nothing good to show for it

📅 Last updated: December 27, 2025

For decades, Hollywood has been a place of technological wonder, a pioneer in using cutting-edge tools to tell stories in ways that captivate global audiences. From the first talkies to the rise of CGI, the industry has repeatedly integrated new tech into its creative bloodstream. In 2025, however, the industry made its most ambitious and, ultimately, most disastrous technological bet yet: a full-throated embrace of generative artificial intelligence not as a mere tool, but as a central creative engine. The result was not a new golden age of cinema, but a year of artistic stagnation, public backlash, and a stark lesson in the limits of machine-generated “creativity.”

The Pre-2025 Niche: AI as a Tool

• AI was used for specific, labor-intensive visual effects (VFX) tasks.
• Common applications included de-aging actors, removing elements from shots, and fast rotoscoping.
• In this role, AI functioned as a powerful assistant to human artists, saving time on tedious post-production work while keeping the human vision paramount.

The 2025 Pivot: AI as the Creative Engine

The shift in 2025 was one of intent and scale. Driven by cost-cutting pressures, shareholder demands, and Silicon Valley hype, the industry pivoted hard.

The industry began “warming to the idea,” as *The Verge* reported, of deploying this technology not just for polish, but for foundational creation.

• Studios adopted generative AI models to create entire scenes, characters, and scripts from text prompts.
• The seductive promise included: drastically reduced production timelines, elimination of costly physical shoots, and an infinite font of ideas.

The Creative Backfire

What followed was a year of profound creative failure. The initial wave of AI-heavy productions shared damning traits:

• Output was criticized as “text-to-video slop”—technically coherent but emotionally hollow.
• A pervasive “uncanny valley” effect in both visuals and narrative.
• Plots felt algorithmically assembled from tropes, lacking idiosyncratic spark or depth.
• Character dialogue was syntactically correct but psychologically flat, devoid of subtext or genuine humanity.

The Swift Backlash

The backlash was swift and multifaceted:

• A-list creators publicly condemned the trend as the final commodification of art.
• Audiences, initially curious, began to…

Key Takeaways

• Hollywood’s 2025 gamble on generative AI as a core creative engine backfired, leading to artistic stagnation.
• AI previously succeeded as a specialized tool for VFX but failed when tasked with foundational storytelling.
• The resulting content was widely panned as emotionally hollow and algorithmically derivative.
• The experiment triggered significant backlash from both industry professionals and the public.