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‘Gladiator II’ Writer: It’s Not Over for Us Hollywood Scribes

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Back in February, Hollywood received a message from the future: “I hate to say it, but it’s likely over for us.”

This came from Wolverine & Deadpool screenwriter Rhett Reese in response to a clip posted on Twitter by the Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson. The AI-generated video, as you’ve almost certainly seen, depicted a fight between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise atop what appeared to be a Roman ruin set somewhat perplexingly against the New York City skyline.

The clip seemed to represent a huge leap forward in AI-generated video, with high production values and realistic facial expression and movement. It looked like a movie. An expensive one. While some commenters were critical, the quality of the video represented a quantum leap forward from the famously crude early AI videos depicting Will Smith eating spaghetti.

Anyone who extrapolated that progress into the future could see that it wouldn’t be long — a year, months, weeks — before anyone could generate movies on their home computer that once cost $200M or more at no cost. For screenwriters like Mr. Reese and myself, and for everyone else who earns their living in our business, the prognosis seemed clear: It’s over for us. 

Or is it? Because the question, I think, isn’t what AI can create. The question is whether anyone will watch it. 

One harbinger of the paradigm shift we’re going through — not just in the entertainment industry but across our entire culture — took place May 11, 1997, when chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov lost to IBM’s Deep Blue. At that point, Kasparov was the greatest chess player in human history, with an ELO rating of 2800, but after that loss, computers left human beings behind and never looked back. To any observer on that day, it would seem that chess, or chess played by human beings, was over. The future would be computers playing other computers.

But that’s not what happened. Competitive chess — human chess — is thriving. Magnus Carlsen is a global celebrity. Chess has made him wealthier than any player before him, and YouTubers like Hikaru Nakamura earn as much as Carlsen. Chess is an industry in a way that it never was in 1997. Meanwhile, there is a much smaller community of people who design AI chess engines and pit them against one another in what I like to imagine as Fight Club-style contests held in basements. The AI chess bots are now vastly better than any human player who has ever lived, but — and this is important — nobody cares about them.

Human beings are social animals. We care about what other human beings do. We don’t really care that much about what machines can do. We take it as a given that they can do things we can’t — after all, that’s why we made them. But they don’t interest us the way other humans do.

Imagine you’re a tennis fan and that in the future Netflix’s algorithm is able to generate tennis matches custom-designed to your taste. You can watch a new, spectacular, nail-biting match between AI Carlos Alcaraz and AI Novak Djokovic every day. Would you watch that channel? Of course not. You don’t care about AI Novak Djokovic. To be a sports fan is not merely to be invested in the spectacle of sports but in the human drama of it: the contest between a young player on his way up against an older one trying for one last title. We feel we know these people, and what’s crucial to the drama of that parasocial relationship is that they are real human beings, testing real human limits. 

We care about the real Novak Djokovic because he’s a 38-year-old man seemingly doing the impossible — just as we care about the real Tom Cruise performing his own stunts because he’s a 63-year-old man doing the impossible.

Now imagine you’re a movie fan. Netflix’s algorithm detects that you loved Sentimental Value, so it creates a channel that auto-generates a new Joachim Trier movie for you every day. Would you watch it? Probably not. Because you’re interested in what Joachim Trier has to say and how he’s choosing to say it. You have a parasocial relationship with him and his actors, even if you’re walking into the theater for the first time and you’ve never seen one of his movies before. He’s a human being trying to communicate something to you, and that communication is part of a broader cultural conversation that takes place over tables at restaurants and parties and on Twitter. And if human beings aren’t involved, we don’t care. 

To be sure, not all entertainment is auteur cinema, and not everybody cares whether what they’re watching was human-made. Would a 3-year-old know or care whether Teletubbies was made by AI? Probably not, and this has implications for children’s programming. And future generations of kids raised on AI programming — “AI natives” — will likely be less discriminating about whether their entertainment is AI- or human-made. There’s a whole stratum of “commodity TV” where the consumer just wants something on in the background, and we should assume that there will be a sort of cultural creep as AI slop becomes more pervasive and starts moving up the entertainment food chain. 

Reese worries that very soon, “a person will be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood releases.” But this medium has existed as long as cinema itself — it’s called animation. We may be on the verge of an era of photorealistic animation, but that won’t necessarily crowd out live-action filmmaking any more than Pixar did. Tellingly, animation has never tried to perfectly replicate what live-action can do: instead, it does what live-action can’t. And in all great animation, from Chuck Jones to Hayao Miyazaki to Wall-E, the human touch is palpable in every frame, because human audiences demand it.

The AI filmmaker of the future will have to create something enormously original and distinctive to rise above the ocean of zero-cost AI slop that will soon be out there. If anything, the bar will be higher for AI filmmakers than live-action filmmakers in terms of voice and originality. The “AI Chris Nolan” that Reese predicts will have to be very, very distinctive in order to avoid being instantly duplicated by legions of roving AI agents cloning whatever movie just dropped.

The future of AI video may not be in creating photorealistic “fake” Hollywood movies with fake stars but movies that Hollywood can’t make, or that it has heretofore never even dreamed of making. The true frontier of the medium may be the point where the merger of “real” live-action performance and AI make films that were once uneconomic suddenly possible.

The real significance of the Brad Pitt vs. Tom Cruise video is that we are fast approaching the point where the cost of producing empty spectacle is zero. Visual imagery that once cost $250,000 per shot and thousands of man-hours to produce in CGI will be as plentiful as air, or water. We will soon be swimming in it, and its cultural and economic value will decline accordingly. But the supply of human drama, written by real writers and performed by real actors, will remain as scarce and valuable as ever.  

David Scarpa has been a leading voice in film and television for more than 20 years. Represented by Verve, he most recently wrote Gladiator II and Napoleon, both for Ridley Scott.

This story appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s AI Issue. Click here to read more.

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Disney Unveils Oasis Doc Premiere Date Of October 9

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Disney has unveiled premiere date for Steven Knight’s Oasis documentary on Disney+ and Hulu.

The feature will land on October 9, just two weeks after tickets to Oasis’ next round of tour dates were snapped up, including some shows in the U.S.

Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger has already had a theatrical run where it became the UK’s highest-grossing documentary feature film of 2026. Described as an “unapologetically uplifting account of the biggest musical event of 2025,” Knight’s movie charts Liam and Noel Gallagher’s reunion tour, Oasis Live ‘25, which was one of the most anticipated rock ‘n’ roll comebacks in years.

The film from Magna Studios and directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace features material from a rare joint interview between the Gallaghers, along with plenty of coverage of the sold-out concerts. Peaky Blinders creator Knight, a huge fan of the band, is writer-creator.

Angela Jain, Head of Content, Disney+ EMEA, said: “The great wait is over…as we now bring Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger to as many people as possible through Disney+, and to be doing it with exclusive unseen footage too, is so exciting for fans. The Oasis reunion has been one of our defining cultural moments of recent times. We have seen how the documentary has resonated with audiences around the world as they celebrate the power of Oasis and music through this evocative and moving reunion story.”

Oasis featured for the first time in a Saturday Night Live UK cold open over the weekend, with the Gallagher brothers revealing themselves as Russian spies after almost convincing Prime Minister Andy Burnham to join them.

Featuring never-before-seen footage, the film is a Magna Studios production, presented by Sony Music Vision in association with Sony Music Entertainment UK. The producers are Sam Bridger and Guy Heeley. The executive producers include Kate Shepherd, Marisa Clifford, Davud Karbassioun, Rob Stringer, Tom Mackay, Krista Wegener, Thomas Benski, Isabel Davis, and Tim O’Shea, with Oscar-winning sound mixers James Mather and Tarn Willers, cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos and editors George Cragg and Martina Zamolo leading the creative technical team. The film was commissioned by VP Unscripted Content for Disney+ EMEA, Sean Doyle.

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Peter Antoniou Tour Dates For 2027 Announced (EXCLUSIVE)

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EXCLUSIVE: British comedian and mind reader Peter Antoniou has announced a big set of tour dates for 2027.

From a childhood fascination with a tarot deck to performing for audiences around the world, Antoniou has built a career around turning the impossible into unforgettable theatre. His live performances combine comedy and audience interaction with moments of mind reading that leave crowds feeling as though they’ve stepped inside an episode of The Twilight Zone. No two performances are alike as Antoniou relies on the audience’s thoughts and secrets to craft the show.

Fresh off his nationwide Pretty Psychic tour, Antoniou’s new show, Peter Antoniou: Brain Teaser, pushes the experience further than ever before.

“This show is bigger, bolder, and more ambitious than anything I’ve done,” he says. “The only missing piece is your brain.”

Tickets will be available beginning with the Citi Presale on Tuesday, September 29 at 10 a.m. local time, running through Thursday, October 1 at 11:59 p.m. local time. They’ll go on sale to the general public on Friday, October 2 at 10 a.m. local.

Antoniou developed his craft through years of study with practitioners ranging from tarot readers and psychics to hypnotists, magicians, and psychologists. He’s repped by Val Sloot at Gersh and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. View his list of tour dates below.

PETER ANTONIOU: BRAIN TEASER 2027 TOUR:
Thu, Jan 14 Napa, CA at Uptown Theatre*
Fri, Jan 15 Monterey, CA at Golden State Theatre*
Sat, Jan 16 SLO, CA at Fremont Theater*
Sun, Jan 17 Ventura, CA at Ventura Music Hall*
Wed, Jan 20 Norfolk, VA at Attucks Theatre
Thu, Jan 21 Durham, NC at Carolina Theatre of Durham/Fletcher Hall
Fri, Jan 22 Charlotte, NC at The Fillmore Charlotte
Sat, Jan 23 Atlanta, GA at Buckhead Theatre
Sun, Jan 24 Lexington, KY at Lexington Opera House
Thu, Jan 28 Silver Spring, MD at The Fillmore Silver Spring
Fri, Jan 29 New York, NY at The Gramercy Theatre
Sat, Jan 30 Mckees Rocks, PA at Roxian Theatre Presented by Citizens
Sun, Jan 31 Philadelphia, PA at The Fillmore Philadelphia
Tue, Feb 2 Exeter, UK at Phoenix
Wed, Feb 3 Cardiff, UK at Glee
Thu, Feb 4 Bath, UK at Komedia
Fri, Feb 5 London, UK at Leicester Square Theatre
Sun, Feb 7 Bristol, UK at Hen and Chicken
Mon, Feb 8 Cambridge, UK at Junction
Tue, Feb 9 Leicester, UK at Y Theatre
Wed, Feb 10 Sheffield, UK at Leadmill
Thu, Feb 11 Liverpool, UK at Hot Water
Fri, Feb 12 Belfast, UK at Limelight
Sat, Feb 13 Dublin, IE at Ambassador
Sun, Feb 14 Manchester, UK at New Century Hall
Tue, Feb 16 Newcastle, UK at Stand
Wed, Feb 17 Edinburgh, UK at Monkey Barrell
Thu, Feb 18 Glasgow, UK at Glee
Sun, Feb 21 Vancouver, BC at The Chan Centre*
Thu, Feb 25 Denver, CO at Paramount Theatre
Fri, Feb 26 Minneapolis, MN at The Fillmore Minneapolis
Sat, Feb 27 Salt Lake City, UT at The Depot
Thu, Mar 11 Spokane, WA at Bing Crosby Theatre
Fri, Mar 12 Seattle, WA at The Neptune Theatre
Sat, Mar 13 Salem, OR at Historic Elsinore Theatre
Sun, Mar 14 Boise, ID at Egyptian Theatre
Thu, Mar 18 Tucson, AZ at Rialto Theatre
Fri, Mar 19 Phoenix, AZ at The Van Buren
Sat, Mar 20 San Diego, CA at Observatory SD
Thu, Apr 1 Anaheim, CA at The Grove of Anaheim
Fri, Apr 2 Los Angeles, CA at Wilshire Ebell Theatre
Sat, Apr 3 San Francisco, CA at Palace of Fine Arts
Fri, Apr 9 Tampa, FL at Tampa Theatre
Sat, Apr 10 Ft. Lauderdale, FL at Wells Hall at The Parker
Sat, May 1 Lancaster, CA at Lancaster PAC*
Thu, May 6 Dallas, TX at House of Blues
Fri, May 7 Houston, TX at House of Blues
Sat, May 8 San Antonio, TX at The Aztec Theatre

*Not a Live Nation show

This story originated as part of Deadline’s Comedy Means Business newsletter. Sign up here.

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Boyzone Live Concert Coming To Sky From Curious Films

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EXCLUSIVE: A Toxic Love Story producer Curious Films is moving into the live space with a new Boyzone concert film following the smash success of its Sky doc.

Last year, Boyzone: No Matter What became Sky’s most-watched unscripted series of all time and was the catalyst for the Irish superstars getting back together. Curious Films has subsequently produced a fourth and fifth episode showing Ronan Keating and co reforming and we can reveal has also recorded the band’s live concert from the Emirates Stadium, London, which took place over the summer and will air later this year on Sky.

The Boyzone: One for the Road live one-off is a first for a UK documentaries indie that has spent the past few years nurturing a reputation for making big true crime and pop culture hits for the streamers including Netflix’s A Toxic Love Story, and Hulu’s Welcome to the Family and Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth.

Curious boss Dov Freedman said the decision to make the live show “came quite late in the day” and involved a much faster turnaround than the London-headquartered outfit is used to.

“[The live show] was a refreshing addition to the retrospective work we do,” said Freedman. “We can spend 18 months or two years making crime documentaries, whereas the concert film had a much faster turnaround. It involved a different dynamic, different producers and different skills. We had around 40 staff working on it and shot it with about 25 cameras. It looked fantastic, and we’re definitely looking to do more in that space.”

Curious’ timing is good as the streamers double down on live content mainly in areas like music and sport. Netflix UK recently forged a commissioning team dedicated to live.

Curious’ “knew we had something” when it started filming the first Boyzone doc and the “pain close to the surface” from the band members became clear, Freedman said.

Things got even clearer when the band’s former manager Louis Walsh was interviewed and “they all had different perspectives on the same story.” Walsh has described claims made by band members in the doc as “fiction rather than fact.”

“The first time we got in a room with the band, we sensed that we were onto something,” said Freedman. “They were all going to be very honest, which felt refreshing.”

“Outsider perspective”

Curious is keen to do more live but will continue to mainly do what it does best, Freedman said, focusing on true crime and popular culture. It recently entered a new era following the departure of Freedman’s co-founder Charlie Russell, who has been replaced by the promoted MD Nicky Varley, someone who Freedman said has “played an important role in building our relationships with Hulu, Netflix and National Geographic.”

Curious’ approach in part over recent years has been to examine “big American ‘ripped from the headlines’ stories” and deliver them with “craft,” Freedman said. He reckons British docmakers have a particular sensibility, which suits this approach.

“We always saw America as a good opportunity,” he added. “This isn’t new – companies that came before Curious have been doing it much longer – but we believed our Britishness and outsider status could help us get access to stories that U.S. producers might not be able to access in quite the same way. That outsider perspective can also give us a different approach to telling the stories.”

Shows may have aired in the past about the subjects of Welcome to the Family or A Toxic Love Story, but Freedman questioned whether they were “made too quickly or reacted to events too soon.” “When we take on a story, we try to tell the definitive version,” he added. “That’s often about timing.”

In the case of these two shows it paid off.

Following a jaw-dropping revenge plot involving a newly-married U.S. Marshal and his ex-girlfriend, A Toxic Love Story has hit numerous Netflix top 10s since launching over the summer. Welcome to the Family, which tells of the brutal murder of law professor Dan Markel, has spent days as Disney+’s no. 1 show in both the U.S. and UK.

“If you look across Curious’s slate over the last couple of years we’ve been able to deliver large audiences at a time when audiences are fragmented and competition for viewers has never been higher,” said Freedman.

He said Welcome to the Family has kept the “very good” Hulu scripted series Furious off the top spot for a while now. “If you compare the cost of Welcome to the Family with the cost of a scripted series such as Furious, I think streamers and buyers are looking closely at the audiences that true-crime stories can bring,” he added.

Curious wants to double down in America and Freedman speaks with Deadline from L.A., which he will visit three to four times per year and says is “really starting to pay off.”

In the offing is another Netflix true crime series for early next year, which Freedman is keeping mum about, and a show about a “story I’ve always liked that people know, but they only know one side of it,” he added, intriguingly.

Freedman’s view on the docs commissioning landscape more generally is “mixed.”

On the one hand, “it’s harder than ever to get greenlights, competition is intense for stories that everyone knows are working, and buyers are making fewer bets each year.”

On the other, “documentaries have never been more popular or attracted such large audiences.”

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