Higgsfield open-sources ANERNEQ, a 20-minute Arctic drama, with every prompt and asset public

Katzenberg's 2,377-word essay: 'the tools-versus-no-tools argument is a trap'

Jeffrey Katzenberg's essay on X tells Hollywood to negotiate AI terms of credit, consent and compensation, but it names no rate, license or opt-out and does not disclose his own AI video investments.

Jeffrey Katzenberg posted a roughly 2,400-word essay to X on 23 September, the only post his account has ever made, and its thesis fits in one line: "The tools-versus-no-tools argument is a trap." Hollywood should accept that AI is not going away, he writes, and spend its energy on the terms instead. He asks AI developers to include artists "with credit, with consent, and with compensation," and he is frank that jobs go, citing pit musicians and DreamWorks' own exit from hand-drawn animation.

What the essay does not contain is a single term. There is no rate, no licensing model, no opt-out and no view on work that has already been scraped, because in his own sequencing the fairness debate comes later. It also leaves out his interests: his firm WndrCo invested in the AI video company Reactor and backs the animation tool Cartwheel, and The Information reported on 9 September that he is forming an AI video company with former Sora head Bill Peebles. That report is unconfirmed, and the company has no public name.

In practice, treat his three words as a spec and ask for the numbers: credit that a model actually documents, consent before training rather than an opt-out after it, and a figure per work or per use. The next place those terms get written is animation, where the Animation Guild contract expires on 31 July 2027 with its generative AI priorities, in the guild's own words, "not fully answered."

China is building AI video like it built EVs: subsidised rent, computing vouchers and state-backed AI film studios

Chinese local AI video subsidies mostly pay after a title is live and scale with views. The biggest named compute voucher is capped near $2,990 a title, and no city publishes how many it has paid.

Reuters compared China's push into AI video to the playbook it used for electric vehicles and solar panels. The schemes we checked tell a more useful story, because most of the money is paid for hits. Beijing's Huairou district refunds 30% of a title's compute bill, capped at 20,000 yuan (about $2,990), and only once the title is live and the producer can show receipts. Hangzhou's Shangcheng district offers up to 300,000 yuan a work with play counts as a review criterion, and Guangzhou's Baiyun base gives free rent only to teams that already have a title past 10 million plays.

Volume is not the scarce thing. China's broadcast regulator counted 430,000 micro-dramas released from January to August, more than 90% of them made with AI, while CCTV reported that the going rate for a minute of standard AI drama fell from 5,000 yuan to a few hundred in six months. Upfront help does exist, such as 50 rent-free desks in Haikou, but no city publishes how many vouchers it has actually paid.

In practice, if you make AI film outside China, the benchmark you are priced against is a flood almost nobody watches. Brand-commissioned work there still sells for 10,000 to 20,000 yuan a minute, so story, IP and a paying client are the moat, not compute.

Sources: Reuters (25 Sep), Huairou district rules (14 Apr), the regulator's briefing (17 Sep) and CCTV via Jiemian (6 Sep). Dollar figures are converted at about 6.7 yuan to the dollar.

Marion Cotillard on AI actors: 'for now they act like potatoes'

Marion Cotillard told a San Sebastián press conference that AI actors still act like potatoes, but she named no specific AI film or performer, and her longer answer on spotting AI survives only in Spanish reports.

Marion Cotillard was at San Sebastián on 24 September to promote Nicole Garcia's Milo, a human drama, when someone asked her about AI actors. The Oscar winner answered laughing: "I think I would be very afraid the day I was moved by an AI actor. For now, I find that they act like potatoes, and that reassures me." Acting like a potato is everyday French for stiff, wooden acting.

The wire stopped at the joke, but Spanish outlets in the room carried a longer answer. According to Europa Press, she said she always tries to detect AI, which is still detectable today, and teaches her children to detect it too. She also said AI can be formidable in many trades and only becomes disconcerting when it touches art.

That detection habit is the useful part for anyone building a synthetic performance. The usual debate runs on pixels, and she is describing a viewer who sits down already hunting for the moment the performance breaks. In practice, a generated character needs a specific want, a history and a reason to be on screen, and work that says what it is up front leaves that viewer nothing to catch.

She did not name any AI film or performer, including Tilly Norwood, in any account we read.

Source: AFP and Europa Press reports of the Milo press conference, San Sebastián Film Festival, 24 September 2026. Photo: Harald Krichel, Venice 2026, CC BY-SA 4.0.