The Ben Mulroney Show - Is AI Going to Kill or Save Hollywood?

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Guests and Topics: Guest: Mohit Rajhans, Mediologist and Consultant, ThinkStart.ca If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit PCFinancial.ca for details. This next segment is a really interesting one. My producer sent a video to our next guest asking, whereas someone going into a movie theater was asked a question, would you rather watch a movie made with AI for $5 or a movie with real actors for $1,000? And it poses a really interesting question.

Are we getting to the point where technology could give us high quality, immersive film, the immersive film experience that we know and love made entirely with AI at such a lower cost that it could change the dynamic of Hollywood completely. Joining us to talk about that is a film buff in his own right mo hit Rajan's he's a meteorologist and consultant with thinkstart.ca mo hit welcome to the show.

Ben, always a pleasure. And I love the fact that we can talk about something like this because it's happening in real time. It is. It is. I mean, I remember seeing a video of somebody watching Netflix in the, I want to say somewhere in Europe. And they were able to, when they were,

I think it was being, something was being beta tested there. They were able to switch from language to language, but it wasn't dubbed in the way that we know. They were using AI to change the shape of the mouths of the actors so that if they were speaking originally in Swedish, they would look like they were speaking in English just with the flick of a switch. It was, I'd never seen anything like it.

Well, dubbing is obviously one of the original places that we saw disruption in the film and television industry as a result of AI, right? Like to begin with. So, you know, we started to watch streaming shows collectively from all over the world. And, you know, you and I have watched enough content to know that we hate reading movies.

Yeah. And we hate reading, you know, what's happening in the story and to try to keep up. And I think dubbing was one of the original ways that people started to realize, oh, artificial intelligence is going to be a disruptor in Hollywood and the way movies are made. And that's just one way that we're going to start to see costs being brought down. But then you and I also know in the last two years, we've seen that explode to have such a ripple effect on multiple ways in the industry.

Yeah, it's unbelievable. And look, I know that there are guardrails in place that during the last big writer's strike and actor's strike, they put new guardrails in around protections with AI. You couldn't use AI to rewrite a script, for example. You needed a human being to do that. And you couldn't use people's likeness through AI after they passed without explicit authorization

from that person or their estate. All that makes sense. But what that doesn't do is that doesn't prevent some young, industrious, talented, tech savvy wannabe screenwriter from creating an entirely AI made film on his laptop that could one day, trump the likes of the biggest Hollywood film. I think what you're also alluding to

is the ability to actually rapidly create your own entire ecosystem to do that. You can actually do exactly what you said and then create your own OTT station and distribute your own film to your own people. Somebody recently, a comedian was talking about how expensive it is to actually produce their own Netflix special by the time that they're done with it, just to get that little logo at the side of their ability to tour on posters, et cetera, and said, now it's more efficient for them to be able to edit it

on the cheap with a local person and distribute it on YouTube to get the same value. I think we're seeing this ripple effect happen, but here's the question then. Nevermind the creative side, let's talk about the marketing and promotion side and the fact that with artificial intelligence, people are going to be able to customize how they find their audience. When's the last time you saw a trailer for a Canadian film?

Yeah, yeah, you're right. You know, we talk about all this like, elbows up, we're going to do all this patriotic stuff. I don't know one Canadian streaming service that's getting more of my attention as a result of targeted advertising. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And I have disabilities as well. Sorry, go ahead. Well, I was gonna I was gonna say like you and I can talk about this and how the business is changing. But you know, hearing from the people affected the most of people on the front lines, the most is telling, and more than half of

media and entertainment CEOs have admitted that the current business model in which they operate will not survive the next decade. And a lot of it has to do with AI. And I wonder, how do you see mainstream Hollywood? And we just talked about that guy who can create it, do his own thing and create an incredible movie on his laptop.

But what are the traditional, what are the Warner Brothers, what are the Disney's gonna do moving forward? I think what we're going to see is a lot of big business partner up with technology and start to move the needle together rather than sort of live in these two separate places. I wouldn't doubt if you hear about a big Disney

slash Microsoft deal to start to create tools where everybody feels like they're working from the same lens on seeing artificial intelligence properly disrupt. There's no way you're going to see the long list of end credits at the end of a film anymore and be able to justify that budget. But you know what scares me?

Is this adoption rate, right? Even in Canada, we've got this wonderful amount of VFX, etc., that are houses that do global productions. But until it's clear about what the rules and parameters are, it's going to be stymied by an industry that doesn't like to grow at the pace of technology. And the case in point is you can green a set all you want and be efficient all you want. You still see big trucks out in front of every production in the city. That doesn't necessarily need to happen anymore. So we haven't really got to this kernel yet where everyone benefits from this efficiency

and innovation around. So I don't know how big Hollywood's going to be able to adapt so quickly considering there is worries about job loss. There is worries about what this efficiency means for creatives down the road. But it's not necessarily something that should impede the growth here. And look, we always talk about when Uber came, we sort of accepted, guess what, there's gonna be job losses in the taxi industry. When Amazon originally first came in, guess what, bookst going to be job losses in the taxi industry. When, when Amazon originally first came in, guess what,

bookstores are going to close and they say, Oh, but we're going to miss that human interaction with the shop around the corner. Well, maybe, uh, but we clearly have adapted to that world. And, and I just think of, you know, I just think of, uh, some of the big budget action films and how much they rely on computer generated imagery. Like so much of it is is that part and what's called Captain America Brave New World, which I thought was a okay movie.

One of the but the thing that I liked about it were the action scenes, very few of them were done without the interaction with computer graphics. If those computer graphics can be generated far quicker and far more cheaply, that movie comes out faster at a lower cost and therefore there's more opportunity for Disney to make another movie. There is a benefit to not just us as a viewer who get to see these movies sooner, but it lowers their costs so that they can then spend more money on a movie. not just us as a viewer who get to see these movies sooner, but it lowers their costs so that they can then spend

more money on other projects, hiring more people. Or even with reach, think about how many things that you and I have probably had the ability to view because of our work, et cetera, in the past that nobody's been able to see again. And that is no fault of anybody's bad film, it's because of marketing, right? It's because of how do you get to the audience that you really like? There's a lot of Quebec language television, Quebec television being made that I rarely get to see. When I catch

it, I think to myself, this would play so well in a different market. So all of that goes to say, like, you know what I look forward to? I look forward to your kids one day saying, I want to make a movie and you not thinking to yourself, are you kidding me? Yeah, but no, but you know what? The marketing point is true. A lot of people don't know that the general rule of thumb in Hollywood is whatever the budget for your film was,

that's about the budget that you're going to have to market that film as well. That's a huge nut, right? And if there is a way to use AI to lower the cost of the marketing of a film, and in fact, find a way to optimize every single dollar you spend, that's a that would be a huge boon for Hollywood. And sometimes you don't even realize that international like the stars are international stars in different markets until it's found that right? You don't know if you're Steven Seagal film plays well in another country or if Harrison

Ford is a legend in another part of the world. All of this to say that I think it's quite exciting as we see. What's scary is obviously the most conversations that people are having right now is the generative part. How quickly are you going to be able to make your own Jackie Chan film? Mohet, yeah Mohet we're gonna leave it there but the idea of an AI Jackie Chan I love it. Hey thank you so much have a great weekend. Take care. I've just been to Specsavers and upgraded my lenses to extra thin and light with 50% off. Now what else can I upgrade? My cat? Meow!

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