AI is rewiring the world’s most prolific film industry

[BENGALURU] Welcome to the new look movie set. There, the cacophony of cameras, clapperboards, and loud instructions is replaced by the quiet noise of a coding floor.

Collective Artist Network, Bollywood’s top talent agency, has been brokering the careers of reality superstars for years. I’m currently doing digital engineering. At the Bangalore site, filmmakers are using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create content based on Hindu mythology, a popular genre in India. 1 movie based on a religious text ramayanaThere is a scene in which Lord Hanuman is seen flying with a mountain on his back. A show based on another ancient epic, mahabharatthere is a sequence depicting Princess Gandhari blindfolded when she marries a blind king.

India produces more films than any other country, and stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan enjoy cult followings. But many industry insiders say changes in viewer habits, including the rise of streaming, are putting pressure on production budgets. According to consulting firm Ormax Media, the number of moviegoers has fallen from 1.03 billion in 2019 to 832 million in 2025. Box office revenue reached a record $1.4 billion last year, but revenue has been erratic since the pandemic, relying on a small number of blockbusters and more expensive tickets.

Indian studios are responding by deploying AI on a scale not seen in other countries. We are producing authentic movies generated by AI. Releasing movies in multiple languages ​​using AI dubbing. Sometimes the endings of older titles are cut to generate additional sales. In the process, they are reshaping the economics of film production, compressing production schedules, and repeatedly challenging AI-driven efficiencies. That is, even when AI content sells, audiences often judge it harshly.

“AI is cutting production costs by a fifth compared to traditional filmmaking in genres like mythology and fantasy,” said Rahul Regurapati, head of the collective’s AI studio known as Galleri5. And what is the production time? “It’s down by a quarter,” he said.

This approach is different from Hollywood. In Hollywood, union contracts and turnover concerns limit studios’ use of technology. In India, at least one major production house is overhauling its entire library for AI re-releases, with Google, Microsoft and Nvidia taking early bets by partnering with local filmmakers.

Previous reports have explored how Indian filmmakers are leveraging AI and the disconnect between India and Hollywood. But for the first time, Reuters has revealed in detail the extent to which India’s film industry is reshaping itself around AI, and the economic conditions driving that change.

For this story, Reuters visited two AI studios to test their filmmaking tools, attended a film festival, and interviewed 25 people, including directors, studio heads, industry executives, and startup figures. American and British studios are experimenting with AI filmmaking, producing the first feature-length AI animated feature and AI-powered immersive film in 2024. wizard of oz last year.

But the ambitions of Indian filmmakers are on another level, says Dominic Rees, a film and AI researcher at the University of Reading in the UK. “If they can make it happen, AI filmmaking will move to India,” he says.

The shift towards AI reflects India’s widespread acceptance of technology. Last year, Reuters detailed India’s bet that relying on AI presents ample opportunity to offset short-term disruptions. According to an analysis by consulting firm EY, AI has the potential to increase revenue by 10% and reduce costs by 15% for Indian media and entertainment companies in the medium term.

Vikram Malhotra, founder of Abundantia Entertainment, told Reuters that the Bollywood production company, which recently announced an $11 million investment in an AI studio, is building its AI capabilities from the ground up and expects AI-generated or assisted content to account for a third of its revenue within three years.

A new ending to an old drama

Last year, India’s Eros Media World re-released its 2013 hit. ranjanawith an AI-modified twist. It replaced the tragic ending in which the main character dies with a happier ending in which he opens his eyes to his lover’s surprise and smiles with tears in his eyes.

This rewrite prompted a backlash. Lead actor Dhanush, who goes by an alias professionally, said in X that the AI ​​remake “stripped the very soul out of the film” and set a “very worrying precedent for both art and artists.”

However, the re-release ranjana gathered an audience. PVR Inox, India’s largest movie theater chain, told Reuters that 35% of available tickets for Tamil-language films were sold in August, the month of release. This was 12 points higher than the 2025 average.

Now Eros has gone even further. Group CEO Pradeep Dwivedi told Reuters the studio was reviewing its catalog of 3,000 titles “to identify candidates for AI-assisted adaptation.” The group’s Indian arm Eros International last year warned of “competition from digital platforms” after its consolidated annual operating revenue fell by 44%.

“This is both a revenue opportunity and a creative renewal strategy,” Dwivedi said of the AI ​​rewrite plan. In Hollywood, such a change would face barriers.

Under an agreement with the US actors union SAG-Aftra, studios cannot digitally alter an actor’s performance or create a digital replica without the performer’s consent. The Directors Guild of America has agreements in place that prohibit studios from using AI to make creative decisions without consulting directors and prevent AI from doing the work of its members.

By contrast, studios in India are actively experimenting with AI, such as with Hindu mythological stories, which are big business in a country with millions of devout followers. Collective is planning eight AI-generated titles focusing on deities such as Hanuman, Krishna, Durga and Kali.

Geostar, a media joint venture between billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance and Walt Disney, is broadcasting AI-generated adaptations of ancient Hindu epics. mahabharat – The first episodic series born from Collective’s Cinema AI Lab.

The AI ​​rendition of the story about a dynastic war between princes has racked up at least 26.5 million views since its release in October on JioStar’s streaming platform, the company told Reuters. Previous television versions drew 200 million viewers between 1988 and 1990. However, the show faced harsh reactions from viewers. mahabharat It has a rating of 1.4 out of 10 on IMDb, with some reviewers criticizing lip-syncing issues and saying that some sequences felt low-quality and lacked authenticity due to their unnatural style.

Alok Jain, a senior Geostar executive, told Reuters the reaction was “a mix of gratitude and healthy debate, as is to be expected for such an ambitious creative leap.” He said JioStar is considering creating original stories in AI format.

Some industry insiders lament the rise of AI in film production. Jonathan Taplin, an American writer and producer who has worked with Hollywood studios, said using AI to create an entire feature film is “an affront to the entire history of cinema.”

“The theaters and screens will be filled with official slop,” he said.

Dubbing by AI

Dubbing could provide a smoother path to the acceptance of AI in movies.

With 22 official languages ​​and hundreds of dialects, India is divided into small markets, making dubbing essential for a film to become a national blockbuster. Viewers have long complained about inconsistencies in lip movements, but AI is starting to address this issue.

During a Reuters visit to Neural Garage, a Bengaluru-based AI startup that provides dubbing for top studios such as Yash Raj Films, co-founder Subhabrata Debnath demonstrated a clip of an AI-generated character speaking in English. We then overlaid the German audio track, and within minutes the character was speaking fluent German with lip and jaw synchronization.

Debnath said the technology preserves “a person’s performance, identity, and way of speaking” and allows faces to be changed enough for dubbing to look natural.

NeuralGarage’s AI technology was used to dub Yash Raj’s Hindi film last year war 2 Translated into South Indian Telugu. The production company did not respond to questions from Reuters.

Tech giants hit the red carpet

Global technology giants also want to join these efforts. In August, Google partnered with Bollywood director Shakun Batra to produce a five-part film series that uses the company’s Veo 3 video generation and Flow AI tools to experiment with AI-enabled filmmaking. Mira Lane, Google’s vice president of technology and society, told Reuters that AI could allow independent artists to create complex sequences that “may not be affordable due to budgetary or logistical constraints.”

Collective is working with Microsoft, which is providing its AI computing power to “shape the next wave of global storytelling” through such collaborations, it told Reuters.

To get around the limitations of standard text prompts, Collective uses a hybrid of physical recording and digital animation. The actors wear motion capture suits equipped with sensors that record their body movements as 3D data, and their facial expressions are captured using smartphones. This data is fed into the AI ​​pipeline, allowing for subtle control over the characters generated by the AI.

The ripples are spreading beyond the studio. Globally, festivals dedicated to showing AI-generated short films are mushrooming in cities such as Los Angeles, Cannes, and Barcelona. India’s first event was held in November at the Royal Opera House in Mumbai, where young storytellers walked the red carpet alongside dancing robots.

And in February, Nvidia shared the stage with aspiring AI filmmakers at the second edition of India’s AI Film Fest in New Delhi. Pradeep Gupta, Nvidia’s global vice president, told the audience that the company is working to reduce computing costs so that anyone can “create something substantial without spending a lot of money.”

Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap told Reuters he is concerned about the prevalence of AI in Indian filmmaking and the lack of guardrails around its use. However, he reluctantly acknowledged the economic reasons for studios to implement the technology.

“In India, movies are not art. They are purely business, so studios will use them to create a myth,” Kashyap said about AI. “Our audience loves it.” Reuters