Overview of The Town with Jeffrey Katzenberg on AI and Hollywood
In this episode, Matt Belloni and Lucas Shaw speak with Jeffrey Katzenberg about his argument that Hollywood should stop treating AI as an enemy and start building with it. Katzenberg says generative AI will not replace human creativity, but it will radically change how films and TV are made by lowering costs, speeding production, and expanding what kinds of projects can get financed. The conversation revisits his 2023 prediction that AI would soon replace much of animation labor, compares today’s AI shift to the move from hand-drawn animation to CGI, and explores his plan to potentially build a new “AI for creativity” company.
Katzenberg’s core argument
AI should be treated as a creative tool, not a replacement
- Katzenberg draws a sharp distinction between “creating” and “creativity.”
- He argues that AI can generate and assist, but taste, judgment, and story sense remain uniquely human.
- His view: the best outcome is AI tools in the hands of top artists, not AI replacing them.
Hollywood is wasting energy fighting AI
- He says the creative community is focusing too much on trying to block AI instead of shaping the rules around it.
- The big unresolved issues, in his view, are:
- credit
- consent
- compensation
- He believes the conversation should shift from resistance to collaboration.
AI could revive a more diverse movie business
- Katzenberg thinks AI will help bring back a broader version of the industry, closer to the old “singles and doubles” model:
- more mid-budget films
- more varied projects
- more risk-taking
- He argues that today’s business is overly concentrated at the high end, making content creation more expensive and less accessible.
Animation, CGI, and the lesson of past disruptions
The hand-drawn to CGI transition changed everything
- Katzenberg recounts how Disney animation used to rely on huge hand-drawn and hand-painted workflows.
- He says the adoption of Pixar’s CAPS system and later full CG animation caused real disruption, but also created:
- new jobs
- new skills
- more animated productions overall
- His point: technological disruption can shrink one workflow while expanding the whole industry.
Why he thinks AI will be different now
- He believes modern AI tools are advancing fast enough to reshape production in a way that is similar in scale to CGI, but broader.
- He expects the biggest impact first in animation, then later in live-action and TV.
- He says the tools will make artists and production teams faster and more capable, not obsolete—though fewer people may be needed on each project.
Katzenberg’s new venture and the Quibi discussion
He wants to build the “picks and shovels”
- Katzenberg says he is more interested in building the underlying tools and workflows than in making a single proprietary studio.
- His goal is to create software and systems that can serve:
- animated film
- live-action film
- television
- creators on YouTube/TikTok
- eventually consumer-facing applications
Quibi comes up, but he doesn’t frame it as a vindication story
- He acknowledges Quibi as a failure and says he tries to own his failures rather than run from them.
- Still, he notes that short-form premium video has since become a major format globally.
- His takeaway: the idea may have been early, but the market eventually moved in that direction.
His forecast for AI in entertainment
What he thinks will happen soon
- Katzenberg predicts that within the next few years, audiences will see:
- a blockbuster AI-assisted animated movie
- a successful live-action project
- a high-end AI-influenced TV series
- He thinks the changes will come faster than people expect.
Why he would start with animation
- If he launches something, he says he’d likely begin with an animated project.
- Reason: animation makes issues like:
- copyright
- consent
- compensation
- credit
easier to manage than in live-action.
- He also says photorealistic AI remains behind animation in terms of practical readiness.
Notable insight
“Taste is not something that can be synthesized. It is uniquely human.”
He uses this idea repeatedly to argue that AI can be powerful, but it still needs human creators to give the work meaning.
Box office / Call Sheet discussion
After the interview, the show shifts to a box office preview with Craig and Matt. They discuss several upcoming releases and make predictions:
- Forgotten Island — the new DreamWorks animated movie
- Their take: likely to overperform expectations, especially as a kid-friendly fall release.
- Heart of the Beast — a Brad Pitt survival thriller
- Their take: likely to underperform relative to tracking.
- Primetime — an A24 title
- Their take: likely to beat expectations, helped by buzz and interest in the premise and cast.
- They also mention the re-release of Avengers: Endgame, which may take the weekend’s top spot despite not being a new release.
Bottom line
Katzenberg’s message is that Hollywood should stop treating AI as a threat to be wished away and start treating it as the next major production revolution. He believes the future belongs to companies that build AI tools for storytellers, not just consumers—and that the winners will be those who combine technological power with human taste, creative judgment, and strong guardrails around rights and compensation.