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Possible · 3 min · Apr 22, 2026

Lower film costs do not guarantee breakout stories

Reed Hastings argues that cheaper filmmaking did not democratize hit-making because production cost was not the main constraint. AI may lower costs for effects, but stories and recognizable performers still matter.

Reed Hastings

Reed Hastings is cofounder and former CEO of Netflix.

Co-founded Netflix and led it as CEO, then became majority owner and chair of Powder Mountain.

  • Reid Hoffman, Host · Co-founder, Manas AI

    Co-founded LinkedIn; one of OpenAI's first investors; Greylock partner.

About this segment

Reed Hastings argues that cheaper filmmaking did not democratize hit-making because production cost was not the main constraint. AI may lower costs for effects, but stories and recognizable performers still matter.

From “Reed Hastings: From Building Netflix to What Comes Next”, Apr 22, 2026. Watch the full episode

“There's lots of student films produced today, produced back then, and they just don't break through.”
Reed Hastingsat 25:53 · Possible25:53

Takeaways

  1. Digital filmmaking lowered costs but did not make student films break through.
  2. AI can reduce the cost of effects and other mechanical production work.
  3. Audiences may still pay for real actors and familiar performers.

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 16:39AI may expand demand instead of eliminating professions2:56

  2. 25:17Lower film costs do not guarantee breakout stories2:35

  3. 33:27Emotional skills may matter more than STEM in an AI era3:45Up next
  4. 5 more moments in the full episode

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 25:22

    ushers in new stories or different people who are telling these stories? What will the effects be? Well, people have been talking about democratization of film for 50 years. And so the early wave of democratization was in the 90s when you could take it with digital instead of celluloid film. And so you could do more takes and the cost of filmmaking was going to come down and that was going to democratize film.

  2. 25:45

    And it really didn't change because we got bigger budgets, higher special effects. We did reshoots more. We just raised it up. So it turned out that the constraint really wasn't the film cost. There's lots of student films produced today, produced back then, and they just don't break through. And take our recent success with K-pop Demon Hunters. I mean, you know, in some ways, wow, cool. I have a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 5-year-old.

  3. 26:09

    I certainly know about it. It's like our 28th animated film. Right. Okay? You know, it's like even for us, it's really, really hard. And God knows we want to repeat K-pop, but, you know, other than we'll do the sequel. But other than that, it's like, can we apply the same lightning strikes? So, I mean, we are really working hard. But think of it as it's a very subtle set of high-end things. So it'll help a little, particularly in TV when you do a lot of episodes and, you know, it'll help a little bit on the scripting.

  4. 26:41

    Where it'll help particularly is then script to screen. Okay. So you've got a big crowd shot, you know, and like, you know, a big stadium. Totally. That might be, you know, a very expensive VR shot now. special effects shot, but now it'll be AI and that'll be lower cost. So the mechanical parts or industrial parts will be lower cost, but the backbone, the story, and then back to the basketball example. So we don't want to watch robots. I think we're going to want people will pay for real actors and people they recognize in that way. But we'll see. I mean, there's definitely a threat of short form you know does do young people only go on tiktok okay and never you know watch a podcast uh or a netflix I mean, we'll also see Val Kilmer has a new film out, and he's been dead for several years.

  5. 27:35

    And so AI Val Kilmer, we'll see if that's a success or not. Recovering past IP and extending it is a niche. And by the way, people will watch Robots, one of the great Netflix Love, Death, and Robots series, etc.