And here's one for the "Hollywood is in trouble" crowd, who proclaim the death of cinema every time a new generative AI tool for video is released.

Meta is now working with several Hollywood filmmakers to help develop its new "Movie Gen" AI tool, which will enable users to create short, HD video clips (currently up to 16 seconds in length) based on text prompts, reports Variety. 
Meta previewed Movie Gen earlier this month, and it will soon let users create entire video clips from prompts, but it'll also allow editing and updating of your existing video clips.

Which could make video editing a whole lot easier, with potentially knock-your-socks-off results. Even so, though, some of the faces in the above clip will give you nightmares if you look too close.

But it gets better, and Movie Gen will eventually be able to crank out crisp, clear videos based on simple commands. Which logically makes an interest to movie makers, and Meta's now apparently working with Blumhouse and actor/director Casey Affleck, among others, on the next phase of the tool.

As Variety reports:

To test it out, Blumhouse opted for a list of filmmakers to test out the product and stitch together Movie Gen's AI-generated video clips into bigger pieces: actor-director Casey Affleck; Aneesh Chaganty; and the Spurlock Sisters, participating in Blumhouse's very first annual Screamwriting Fellowship.

So, yes, generative AI is coming to Hollywood but, for now, will be used only in an assisting capacity, and not as a competitor to human filmmakers and special effects artists.

According to Meta:

"We learned that filmmakers see in Movie Gen a collaborator and thought partner, and its unexpected response to text prompts inspired new ideas.".

Well, at least the idea generated in your brain or a shot that you cast for the first time by yourself may get some new inspiration through Movie Gen, which might help your creative vision. So there could be a whole pile of potential in the tool, but like all this wave of gen AI tools, again it is supplementary to what already exists, and it is not a whole new way for anyone to take on the movie studios.

Because like all such pursuits, undertaking a major creative work is not so easy. I have made this note several times, but most importantly the meat of any film or project is made in the writing and first creating a compelling script that'll hook your audience.

Generative AI can't do that, so for all of its capacity to create Disney-like animation or effects which look realistic, it'll be nothing without the backbone of a great, human-centered screenplay.
So Pixar will spend years on a story before they ever put a frame of animation on it; and that is what most are missing in their optimistic view of AI. Sure it will open up opportunity, and there is a lot of potential using these tools to help build out your vision. But until AI can create compelling narratives, I don't think Hollywood is as much in trouble as people suspect.

But what is interesting is that Meta is working with Hollywood filmmakers on the next stage of Movie Gen, which should help improve the tool.

Meta says Movie Gen will be out to the public in 2025.