Technology

Hollywood’s pivot to AI video has a prompting problem

Published

5 months ago

June 29, 2025

Hollywood’s pivot to AI video has a prompting problem

It has become almost impossible to browse the internet without having an AI-generated video thrust upon you. Open basically any social media platform, and it won’t be long until an uncanny-looking clip of a fake natural disaster or animals doing impossible things slides across your screen. Most of the videos look absolutely terrible. But they’re almost always accompanied by hundreds, if not thousands, of likes and comments from people insisting that AI-generated content is a new art form that’s going to change the world.

That has been especially true of AI clips that are meant to appear realistic. No matter how strange or aesthetically inconsistent the footage may be, there is usually someone proclaiming that it’s something the entertainment industry should be afraid of. The idea that AI-generated video is both the future of filmmaking and an existential threat to Hollywood has caught on like wildfire among boosters for the relatively new technology.

The thought of major studios embracing this technology as is feels dubious when you consider that, oftentimes, AI models’ output simply isn’t the kind of stuff that could be fashioned into a quality movie or series. That’s an impression that filmmaker Bryn Mooser wants to change with Asteria, a new production house he launched last year, as well as a forthcoming AI-generated feature film from Natasha Lyonne (also Mooser’s partner and an advisor at Late Night Labs, a studio focused on generative AI that Mooser’s film and TV company XTR acquired last year).

Asteria’s big selling point is that, unlike most other AI outfits, the generative model it built with research company Moonvalley is “ethical,” meaning it has only been trained on properly licensed material. Especially in the wake of Disney and Universal suing Midjourney for copyright infringement, the concept of ethical generative AI may become an important part of how AI is more widely adopted throughout the entertainment industry. However, during a recent chat, Mooser stresses to me that the company’s clear understanding of what generative AI is and what it isn’t helps set Asteria apart from other players in the AI space.

“As we started to think about building Asteria, it was obvious to us as filmmakers that there were big problems with the way that AI was being presented to Hollywood,” Mooser says. “It was obvious that the tools weren’t being built by anybody who’d ever made a film before. The text-to-video form factor, where you say ‘make me a new Star Wars movie’ and out it comes, is a thing that Silicon Valley thought people wanted and actually believed was possible.”

In Mooser’s view, part of the reason some enthusiasts have been quick to call generative video models a threat to traditional film workflows boils down to people assuming that footage created from prompts can replicate the real thing as effectively as what we’ve seen with imitative, AI-generated music. It has been easy for people to replicate singers’ voices with generative AI and produce passable songs. But Mooser thinks that, in its rush to normalize gen AI, the tech industry conflated audio and visual output in a way that’s at odds with what actually makes for good films.

“You can’t go and say to Christopher Nolan, ‘Use this tool and text your way to The Odyssey,’” Mooser says. “As people in Hollywood got access to these tools, there were a couple things that were really clear — one being that the form factor can’t work because the amount of control that a filmmaker needs comes down to the pixel level in a lot of cases.”

To give its filmmaking partners more of that granular control, Asteria uses its core generative model, Marey, to create new, project-specific models trained on original visual material. This would, for example, allow an artist to build a model that could generate a variety of assets in their distinct style, and then use it to populate a world full of different characters and objects that adhere to a unique aesthetic. That was the workflow Asteria used in its production of musician Cuco’s animated short “A Love Letter to LA.” By training Asteria’s model on 60 original illustrations drawn by artist Paul Flores, the studio could generate new 2D assets and convert them into 3D models used to build the video’s fictional town. The short is impressive, but its heavy stylization speaks to the way projects with generative AI at their core often have to work within the technology’s visual limitations. It doesn’t feel like this workflow offers control down to the pixel level just yet.

Mooser says that, depending on the financial arrangement between Asteria and its clients, filmmakers can retain partial ownership of the models after they’re completed. In addition to the original licensing fees Asteria pays the creators of the material its core model is trained on, the studio is “exploring” the possibility of a revenue sharing system, too. But for now, Mooser is more focused on winning artists over with the promise of lower initial development and production costs.

“If you’re doing a Pixar animated film, you might be coming on as a director or a writer, but it’s not often that you’ll have any ownership of what you’re making, residuals, or cut of what the studio makes when they sell a lunchbox,” Mooser tells me. “But if you can use this technology to bring the cost down and make it independently financeable, then you have a world where you can have a new financing model that makes real ownership possible.”

Asteria plans to test many of Mooser’s beliefs in generative AI’s transformative potential with Uncanny Valley, a feature film to be co-written and directed by Lyonne. The live-action film centers on a teenage girl whose shaky perception of reality causes her to start seeing the world as being more video game-like. Many of Uncanny Valley’s fantastical, Matrix-like visual elements will be created with Asteria’s in-house models. That detail in particular makes Uncanny Valley sound like a project designed to present the hallucinatory inconsistencies that generative AI has become known for as clever aesthetic features rather than bugs. But Mooser tells me that he hopes “nobody ever thinks about the AI part of it at all” because “everything is going to have the director’s human touch on it.”

“It’s not like you’re just texting, ‘then they go into a video game,’ and watch what happens, because nobody wants to see that,” Mooser says. “That was very clear as we were thinking about this. I don’t think anybody wants to just see what computers dream up.”

Like many generative AI advocates, Mooser sees the technology as a “democratizing” tool that can make the creation of art more accessible. He also stresses that, under the right circumstances, generative AI could make it easier to produce a movie for around $10–20 million rather than $150 million. Still, securing that kind of capital is a challenge for most younger, up-and-coming filmmakers.

One of Asteria’s big selling points that Mooser repeatedly mentions to me is generative AI’s potential to produce finished works faster and with smaller teams. He framed that aspect of an AI production workflow as a positive that would allow writers and directors to work more closely with key collaborators like art and VFX supervisors without needing to spend so much time going back and forth on revisions — something that tends to be more likely when a project has a lot of people working on it. But, by definition, smaller teams translates to fewer jobs, which raises the issue of AI’s potential to put people out of work. When I bring this up with Mooser, he points to the recent closure of VFX house Technicolor Group as an example of the entertainment industry’s ongoing upheaval that began leaving workers unemployed before the generative AI hype came to its current fever pitch.

Mooser was careful not to downplay that these concerns about generative AI were a big part of what plunged Hollywood into a double strike back in 2023. But he is resolute in his belief that many of the industry’s workers will be able to pivot laterally into new careers built around generative AI if they are open to embracing the technology.

“There are filmmakers and VFX artists who are adaptable and want to lean into this moment the same way people were able to switch from editing on film to editing on Avid,” Mooser says. “People who are real technicians — art directors, cinematographers, writers, directors, and actors — have an opportunity with this technology. What’s really important is that we as an industry know what’s good about this and what’s bad about this, what is helpful for us in trying to tell our stories, and what is actually going to be dangerous.”

What seems rather dangerous about Hollywood’s interest in generative AI isn’t the “death” of the larger studio system, but rather this technology’s potential to make it easier for studios to work with fewer actual people. That’s literally one of Asteria’s big selling points, and if its workflows became the industry norm, it is hard to imagine it scaling in a way that could accommodate today’s entertainment workforce transitioning into new careers. As for what’s good about it, Mooser knows the right talking points. Now he has to show that his tech — and all the changes it entails — can work.

Related Topics:ai Entertainment film tv-shows

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Technology

Poco partners with Bose to put a subwoofer in its latest phone

Published

15 hours ago

November 26, 2025

Press Room

Poco partners with Bose to put a subwoofer in its latest phone

Xiaomi spin-off brand Poco has partnered with Bose to help its new F8 phones stand out in an increasingly crowded market. Both the F8 Pro and F8 Ultra feature stereo speakers designed collaboratively with the audio company, and the Ultra goes one step further by including a subwoofer too.

Both new F8 phones feature the same dual stereo speakers tuned by Bose, though you’ll have to buy the Ultra if you want the benefits of the subwoofer as well, which Poco says delivers “deeper, more impactful bass.” Additionally, there are two sound profiles tuned by Bose engineers: a Dynamic mode that delivers extra bass, and a Balanced option that emphasizes vocals and a more even soundstage.

“By combining Bose’s expertise in acoustic engineering with Poco’s innovation in design and technology, Poco F8 Series achieves a level of clarity and depth that redefines what’s possible in mobile sound,” said Nick Smith, president of audio technology and chief strategy officer at Bose.

The two phones are otherwise fairly typical affordable flagships. The F8 Ultra has a more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, with a large 6.9-inch OLED display, triple 50-megapixel rear camera, and wireless charging. The F8 Pro uses last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, a smaller 6.59-inch screen, and downgrades to each of the three rear lenses. Both have IP68 ratings though, plus batteries bigger than 6,000mAh, which should deliver decent longevity.

The F8 Pro starts from $579, while the Ultra is available from $729, though a $50 early bird discount is available at launch. The two phones were announced alongside a pair of sub-$400 tablets, the Pad X1 and Pad M1, both of which lean on high resolution displays and Dolby Atmos speakers to serve as good value entertainment options.

Technology

Protect your data before holiday shopping scams strike

Published

16 hours ago

November 26, 2025

Press Room

Protect your data before holiday shopping scams strike

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

The holiday season is the happiest and riskiest time of year to be online. As millions of us gear up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, scammers do the same.

Every year, they target holiday shoppers with fake websites, “too-good-to-be-true” deals and scam emails that look identical to legitimate retailers. But here’s the part most people miss: scammers don’t just rely on luck. They already have your personal data before you even click “add to cart.”

From leaked email addresses to exposed phone numbers and home addresses, your personal information is being bought and sold by data brokers, companies that collect and resell detailed profiles about you. Those profiles are exactly what scammers use to send realistic “order confirmations,” fake delivery alerts and “urgent payment” texts during this holiday period and beyond.

Let’s unpack how this works and what you can do now to stay safe before the holiday chaos begins.

RETIREES LOSE MILLIONS TO FAKE HOLIDAY CHARITIES AS SCAMMERS EXPLOIT SEASONAL GENEROSITY

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Scammers ramp up fake websites and emails during the holiday shopping rush. (iStock)

Why scammers love the holiday season

November through December is a goldmine for cybercriminals. According to the CISA, reports of online shopping scams spike during this time of year and vary in their approaches. The reason? We let our guard down when we’re rushed, distracted or excited by a deal. Staying alert during the holiday season can help you avoid data exposure and financial losses. Here are some of the most common scams you should be aware of.

Phantom stores

The surge of promotions during the holiday season is the perfect time for “phantom stores” to thrive. It’s a fraudulent store that mimics the interface and products of a well-known brand. Once you purchase from such a website, you’ll never receive your order as the store doesn’t actually exist.

Real-world example: Fake IKEA websites appeared with URLs spelled “ikeaa-sale.com” and “ikea-blackfriday.shop,” mimicking the official ikea.com interface with copied product images, logos and discount banners.

They lured shoppers with huge discounts and clearance offers to steal credit card data. Eventually, they were reported and taken down, but the damage has been done.

What to do? Always check the URL of the store you shop at and only click links from the store’s official website or social media.

Delivery scams

According to recent research, some of the most popular shopping apps are selling your location data to third parties. It’s no surprise that you might receive fake delivery texts.

Your leaked data fuels realistic “order” and “delivery” scams online. (iStock)

MAJOR COMPANIES, INCLUDING GOOGLE AND DIOR, HIT BY MASSIVE SALESFORCE DATA BREACH

Real-world example: Temu is a popular app for scammers to mimic. They can easily find your contact information and order details to text “Your order couldn’t be delivered.” Each text contains a phishing link that can install malware on your device or steal your personal information.

What to do? Make sure the texts you receive come from a legit courier service and double-check it on the store’s website.

Fake order emails

Some scammers use sophisticated phishing tactics to lure victims. They engineer emails from well-known brands, use an urgent tone, place malicious links and urge you to click on your order status. In reality, there is no order status – they’re stealing your data.

Real-world example: Amazon is one of the biggest online retailers worldwide, and that makes the brand easy to mimic. Scammers send emails on behalf of Amazon to try to steal customers’ personal data because it’s highly likely that their victims have used Amazon, making it less suspicious. However, phishing emails have some telltale signs you can look out for.

What to do? Never click on any suspicious links and always check the sender’s contact information.

Unwanted data exposure

When you shop online, you should be aware of the data you share, including your contact information, shopping habits, credit card details and more. All stores collect some type of data about you. However, some companies collect more than you think.

Real-world example: The infamous Target controversy in 2012 revealed how big retailers use data analysis to predict your shopping behavior. The company collected shopping data and managed to produce a predictive model for soon-to-be mothers.

They sent out brochures with baby clothes, vouchers for baby formula and more before the customers even knew they were pregnant. Thankfully, modern shopping looks a bit different. You can opt out of certain data collection and exercise your right to remove personal information from websites that collect it.

What to do? Check what data the stores collect about you and request the removal of any private information you don’t want them to have.

THE TRUTH BEHIND THOSE MYSTERIOUS SHIPMENT EMAILS IN YOUR INBOX

How scammers find you

Imagine you’re browsing for gifts online. Within minutes, your activity generates data points – device info, IP address, browsing habits that feed into online databases. At the same time, data brokers already have your full profile: age, income, address history, family members and even shopping behavior. These profiles are sold to marketers and often leak into criminal databases.

That’s why scam calls, texts and emails often feel so “real.” They use your name, the right retailer, even your city. They’re not guessing. They’ve bought your digital footprint.

The “holiday cleanup” your data needs

Most people clear their browser cookies or delete old emails to “stay private.” But that’s like locking your front door while leaving all your personal documents on the lawn.

If you want to stop scammers from targeting you this holiday season, you need to remove your personal data from the source, the data broker databases that feed these scams.

That’s where a data removal service comes in. While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.

Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.

Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.

Practical steps before you shop

To make sure your online shopping season stays stress-free and scam-free, here’s what CyberGuy recommends doing this week:

INSIDE A SCAMMER’S DAY AND HOW THEY TARGET YOU

1) Run a privacy scan with a data removal service

Before the holiday rush, remove your exposed data from data brokers. You’ll reduce the number of scam calls, emails and texts you get this season and protect your financial info before it’s too late.

Take control by removing personal data from broker databases before you shop. (iStock)

2) Secure your email

Use strong, unique passwords for each online store or service. Consider a password manager to simplify this.

Next, see if your email has been exposed in past breaches. Our No. 1 password manager pick includes a built-in breach scanner that checks whether your email address or passwords have appeared in known leaks. If you discover a match, immediately change any reused passwords and secure those accounts with new, unique credentials.

Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2025 at Cyberguy.com.

3) Check for fake stores

Before clicking a social media ad or email, hover over the link. Legit retailers use secure “https://” URLs and their exact brand name – no extra words or letters.

4) Avoid public Wi-Fi

Don’t shop or enter payment info over public Wi-Fi in an airport, café or mall, for example. Scammers can easily intercept unencrypted traffic.

5) Use credit cards or PayPal – not debit cards

HACKERS TARGET ONLINE STORES WITH NEW ATTACK

Credit cards have stronger fraud protection and make it easier to dispute unauthorized charges.

6) Enable two-factor authentication (2FA)

Turn on 2FA for your email, bank and shopping accounts. Even if scammers get your password, they can’t log in without your second verification step.

7) Keep your software and apps updated

Cybercriminals often exploit outdated browsers or apps. Update your phone, computer and shopping apps before the holiday rush to close those security holes.

8) Monitor your bank and credit statements

Check your accounts daily during the shopping season. The faster you spot a suspicious charge, the easier it is to reverse and protect your funds.

Kurt’s key takeaways

Black Friday through Cyber Monday is the peak time for data harvesting. Every purchase, coupon code and sign-up adds to the profile that marketers and data brokers hold on you. That information can linger online for years, long after the sales end. The good news? It’s easier than ever to reclaim your privacy. By taking just a few minutes today, you can enjoy the holidays knowing your personal data is no longer on the open market.

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How confident are you that your personal data isn’t already fueling a scam this holiday season? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Stranger Things is ending, and so is Netflix’s reliance on tentpole shows

Published

1 day ago

November 25, 2025

Press Room

Stranger Things is ending, and so is Netflix’s reliance on tentpole shows

When Stranger Things first premiered in 2016, Netflix was still courting new subscribers with splashy original projects that were meant to have broad audience appeal. The company had solidified itself as a major player in the streaming wars with massive hits like House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, and a collection of live-action Marvel series. The shows were all very different, but they each felt like part of an ambitious plan to establish Netflix as the gravitational center of a new pop cultural era.

Those big, watercooler tentpole projects made Netflix feel like a platform worth subscribing to because of how large they loomed in the public consciousness. Especially in its early seasons, Stranger Things was thrilling to watch as a new sci-fi / horror series steeped in nostalgia. But it was also fascinating to see the show become a global phenomenon that dominated online discourse and inspired other studios to tell more stories set in the ’80s.

Though Netflix has had a number of other massive hits since Stranger Things, it has often felt like the company is thinking differently about its path to continued success. It’s no longer reporting its quarterly subscriber numbers, and a combination of price hikes and new ad-supported tiers have become key parts of its economic growth. Even as Netflix starts rolling out Stranger Things’ final season this week, a three-part event spread out over the rest of the year, it feels like tentpoles — moments that are supposed to capture and sustain everyone’s attention — aren’t as critical to the streamer’s big-picture strategy anymore.

As big as Stranger Things has been in the past, the hype around the show’s fifth and final season has been relatively subdued for a handful of reasons. For one, the competition is fiercer; more streaming platforms have come into existence and they have had ample time to capture audiences’ imaginations with new genre series of their own. Though Stranger Things’ first two seasons came out in quick succession, Netflix began releasing subsequent episodes at much, much slower pace. The series will have been airing for almost a decade when the first part of season 5 drops on November 26th, and many viewers will probably find themselves a little hazy on how the Duffer Brothers’ story got to this point.

Netflix might have been concerned about Stranger Things losing momentum between seasons back when the company was more focused on dropping entire seasons of a show in one fell swoop. But through its shift toward more staggered releases, particularly for its most notable series, Netflix has signaled that it’s aiming for a different kind of success.

Netflix knows that people are still going to watch Stranger Things 5 and stick around for at least a couple of months to see how things shake out for the Hawkins gang. There’s also going to be an animated spinoff series for folks who aren’t ready to leave Stranger Things behind. But Netflix has also cultivated more IP with fandoms of their own outside of Stranger Things, and the streamer understands that those eyeballs can be kept long after the Duffer Brothers have gone.

Though every streamer wants to make bona fide hits that drive subscriber sign-ups, Netflix has gotten heavily into the business of launching franchises that can coexist without seeming to overlap all that much. That’s exactly the vibe you get from the company’s annual Tudum showcase, which frames all of its shows from Bridgerton to Wednesday to Emily in Paris as equally important parts of its future plans.

Rather than launching massive tentpole originals designed to get everyone watching the same thing, Netflix has invested more of its energy into projects that feel more targeted to specific audiences, like fans of anime and live sports. That might be part of why the company spent so much time dabbling in mobile gaming before its recent shift to prioritize TV-focused party gaming. Those dabblings don’t mean that Netflix isn’t thinking about which of its many upcoming series might be “the next Stranger Things.” But they do suggest that the company sees tentpole shows as just one of many irons it needs to keep in the fire.

Netflix’s head content officer Bela Bajaria said as much earlier this year during a presentation where she noted that the platform now has somewhere north of 700 million subscribers. With that many viewers, the company can’t bank on individual shows or movies landing with everyone, and it makes much more sense to cater to specific niches. As long as you’re paying, Netflix doesn’t really care whether you’ve signed up for the English-language Squid Game remake, a Little House on the Prairie reboot, or WWE. All of the programming serves the same bottom line, and the main goal is to keep viewers watching.

Netflix is absolutely going to be paying attention to the ways its subscriber numbers fluctuate in the coming weeks as Stranger Things 5 arrives in waves. A sharp decline once the season is through in the new year might sound some internal alarms. But whether or not Stranger Things 5 is as big as Netflix is building it up to be, its conclusion marks the end of an era for the streamer — and what’s next looks very different. But what’s much more likely is that the show comes and goes with a moderate amount of fanfare, and then Netflix sits back to think about what to do when one of its upcoming projects sticks.

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