AI’s New Generation of Film Producer

How Creators Like Nem Perez Are Reinventing Hollywood's Playbook

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We're witnessing the birth of something remarkable in the film industry. While Hollywood studios continue to pour hundreds of millions into their big swings that sometimes struggle to justify their budgets or impress critics or viewers (ahem Electric State), a small but passionate community of creators is determined to pioneer a new approach to filmmaking through artificial intelligence.

This emerging movement isn't just changing how films get made; it's reshaping who gets to make them and what stories they tell. At its center are unorthodox producers like Nem Perez, whose unconventional path and community-driven approach offer a glimpse into what might be the future of visual storytelling.

The Accidental Producer

Unlike traditional Hollywood producers who climb an established ladder, Perez never intended to become a producer at all.

"To be honest, I never wanted to be a producer. I kind of still don't. It was sort of out of necessity, really," Perez explains.

His journey began when Disney's creative agency approached him for a major campaign that required someone to wear multiple hats – director, editor, producer.

When established production companies turned him down due to budget constraints, Perez took a leap of faith: "I'm not going to miss out on this opportunity. So I decided to start my own production company and take on that opportunity."

This pattern of seeing opportunities where others see obstacles would become a defining characteristic of his approach to AI filmmaking. It's a mindset that proved crucial when, during the 2023 Hollywood writers' strike, Perez observed something fascinating happening online.

A Community Ready for Its Moment

While screenwriters picketed studios over concerns about AI replacing jobs, Perez was immersed in a thriving community of AI creators who were using these tools to express themselves in entirely new ways.

"I became part of this just amazing AI community that was really birthed from Twitter," Perez recalls. "Within those communities, I just saw like tremendous talent."

What he recognized wasn't just technical skill with new tools – he saw storytellers. People who were already making trailers, short films, and experimental pieces with AI. The community was ready for something bigger.

This moment reminds Perez of another artistic revolution he witnessed firsthand: "It feels like the birth of hip hop, if you will. The birth of hip hop started in New York in these small clubs and it started from this scene that was emerging and these parties that would come up and people just coming together."

He draws parallels to Chicago's blog era, where a tight-knit creative community that included future luminaries like Virgil Abloh, Chance the Rapper, and others supported each other's early work.

The Our T2 Remake Experiment

What emerged from this observation was a bold experiment: a full-length remake of Terminator 2 created entirely with AI, with different sections handled by different artists in the community. The project was as much a statement as it was a film.

"All they talked about was how AI was going to take our jobs and how Skynet was going to be a real thing," Perez says about the strike-era discourse. "So that's why I decided to remake Terminator 2, but add commentary to it and showcase that it's not going to be the end of the world."

What made the project unique was its "exquisite corpse" approach, where each chapter was created by different artists with different styles – a perfect mirror of AI's diverse capabilities. This decentralized production model required new approaches to coordination and collaboration.

"Discord was a big, big part of how we made that possible," Perez explains. "We would have Zoom call meetings where we would discuss in person about the story, about the process, upcoming dates... And it was that constant communication, constant feedback loop that helped the entire process because everyone felt involved."

The resulting film, Our T2 Remake, serves as a time capsule of AI's capabilities at a specific moment in time. "We called it our love letter to AI and it was pre-Sora. And we knew that we would look back at this film and see the difference in quality pre-Sora and post-Sora," notes Perez, referring to OpenAI's groundbreaking video generation model that would be released shortly after the project was completed.

From Tools to Storytelling

While much of the current AI filmmaking discourse centers on technical capabilities – what the latest model can or cannot do – Perez maintains a focus on the fundamentals of storytelling.

"The tools as great as they are, really it's more about the story," he insists. "If you can tell a good story, no matter what... It's not really about the quality. It's really about the quality of your storytelling and how you're able to draw you in as a storyteller."

This emphasis on storytelling over technical specifications shaped how Perez selected collaborators for both Our T2 Remake and his current project, an AI reimagining of Alice in Wonderland.

"That was our biggest criteria for selecting these artists. We looked at all their work and saw whether or not they were able to tell a good story with dialogue and sound design and character development and world building. At the end of the day, that's what matters."

Bridging Two Worlds

Unlike some AI enthusiasts who approach the technology from a purely technical perspective, Perez brings the sensibilities of a filmmaker with over 20 years of directorial experience. This background shapes his vision for how AI and traditional filmmaking practices should interact.

"For me, AI filmmaking is closest to the animation pipeline. It's really mostly a post-production pipeline," he observes. "It's an iterative process in terms of how you run these clips through multiple processes... It's kind of similar to a traditional animation workflow where you start with a storyboard and then you go to an animatic and then you go to shading."

But he also worries about losing essential filmmaking crafts in the rush to embrace new tools: "I think that it would behoove you to know how to block a shot traditionally. So I'm constantly thinking about how do I bridge that gap between AI filmmaking and traditional workflows?"

His company, Storyblocker, is developing techniques that integrate real performances with AI-generated environments – preserving the human element while embracing the creative possibilities of virtual worlds.

A Tsunami on the Horizon

While mainstream Hollywood remains cautious about fully embracing AI filmmaking, Perez sees signs of an imminent breakthrough. Several production companies, including Promise Studio, Staircase AI, and Dreamflare, have recently announced significant investments in AI-generated films. Notably, seven of the filmmakers who worked on Our T2 Remake have secured movie deals through these companies.

"I honestly think that we're about to see a tsunami hit the mainstream," Perez predicts. "Something's going to hit huge. And it's going to be the poster child for how AI movies can be made. And then it's just going to be the floodgates are just going to open up."

This potential shift comes at a critical moment for traditional studios struggling with profitability. "If you look at Lions Gate's slate of films last year, I don't think a single one was profitable," Perez observes. "These movies just take so much money to make... I think there's a ripe opportunity to make movies for cheap that people love watching that are made by a whole different set of artists."

Reinventing the Theater Experience

Perhaps most ambitiously, Perez believes AI could help revitalize the struggling theatrical exhibition business. His upcoming Alice in Wonderland project aims to create a more interactive, participatory experience that gives audiences compelling reasons to leave their home streaming setups.

[Full disclosure: The authors of this piece, Fred Grinstein and Minh Do, are both producers on the A.I. Wonderland project discussed here.]

"What we're trying to do with Alice in Wonderland is try to come up with new ways to get people back in theaters," he explains. "AI presents a really great opportunity to do that in this way that we're doing it, where the audience can participate in the actual movie themselves or have a cameo appearance in the movie themselves, because now with generative AI and deep fake technology, all of that is possible."

The conceptual symmetry is perfect: Alice in Wonderland's story of transformation and shifting realities mirrors the transformative potential of AI in cinema itself. "With AI Wonderland, it's a statement that AI could potentially save Hollywood in many, many ways. And this is one way that it could potentially bring people back into the theater."

From Experiments to Industry

What's most striking about conversations with pioneers like Perez is the gap between the theoretical discussions happening in industry panels and the actual groundwork being laid by creators.

"That's my biggest pet peeve," Perez admits. "I have gone to so many conferences and they go, 'AI is going to do this one day' and 'AI is going to do this one day' and 'one day maybe this will happen.' And it's like, okay, but who is actually spearheading this and who is actually doing the work?"

For Perez, projects like Our T2 Remake and Alice in Wonderland represent "my best effort to do the work that is required to actually facilitate change." Rather than just speculating about AI's potential impact on filmmaking, he's actively demonstrating what's possible right now.

That practical, results-oriented approach may be exactly what's needed to bridge the gap between AI's theoretical potential and its practical implementation in an industry as tradition-bound as Hollywood. As the tools continue to evolve and early experiments give way to more polished productions, we may soon find ourselves looking back at this moment as the birth of something as culturally significant as hip-hop – a creative revolution that began on the margins before transforming the mainstream.

The question isn't whether AI will change filmmaking – it's who will lead that change and what values they'll bring to this new cinematic language. If Perez and his collaborators have their way, it will be a future where storytelling remains paramount but the barriers to telling those stories are fewer than ever before.