Warner Bros. has struck a deal with Cinelytic to bring AI decision-making into the company’s film-management system. Initially, it will be limited to just low-level choices. What could possibly go wrong with that?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. will use the system’s “comprehensive data and predictive analytics to guide decision-making at the greenlight stage.” It could access the value of an actor in any territory or estimate how much a film is expected to make in theaters relative to other ancillary streams. Warner Bros. has cautioned that this new AI-based system won’t be picking the next blockbuster. That’s something only experienced producers and executives can do.

If this was a movie…
The next step in the plot would involve theoretically testing the AI-system against the current producers and executives to see which would have proven to be more successful. At first, the AI system was used as a tie-breaker in situations where the producers and executives were at loggerheads to make a quick decision. Then the AI system was given equal status in the process. It became a full partner for greenlighting new films and for strategic planning on ongoing projects.

Eventually, the inevitable happened. Everything was put into the hands of the AI data-driven system. The company was making more money than ever before, so it just seemed simpler to hand over the reins of power to the more insightful decision maker.

Many years later, as the public tired of the formula-driven movies that had become madly predictable, the executives at Warner Bros. struggled to bring back some of the producers and directors from the past who had a knack for creating the best films of their era.

They also looked back to the early days of Warner Brothers Pictures, when a small scrappy movie production company seemed to have its finger on the pulse of the entire world.