I think the bigger threat to cinema is conglomeration. Allowing all the studios to merge, and then buy up the streaming channels, and internet companies is a recipe for killing creativity and free speech.
Two things can be threats to cinema.
How about a third thing? People with no attention spans that look at their phones during the movie instead of paying attention to it.
If only it were just cinema illiteracy.
I think that cinema illiteracy is the least of our worries as we move toward slop as the standard.
AI slop is a mediocrity gold mine
CGI for dummies is the greatest triumph for creative freedom since fanfiction websites.
We’re talking about any gaming PC acting as a whole-ass studio, for the whims of its solitary user. You could cast anyone doing anything. Someone can act it out and be replaced, with as much of a set and a wardrobe as you like - or you can just describe scenes into existence. Or turn lazy animation into plausible live action. Or play with dolls. Diffusion removes the pixels that don’t look like a movie.
If you have real actors and even half-assed locations, you can do The Force Awakens on a Space Cop budget. You don’t need to spend a decade begging for millions of dollars. You can just go make it. Your super special awesome story can become a real movie, without the cardboard sets wobbling when your rubber mask bumps them.
… you do have a story, right? Some clever idea to communicate visually? Because if you just plan to type ‘five-star masterpiece, best quality’ and make grabbyhands, of course you’ll get worthless garbage. But if you intend to visually communicate a narrative, by putting the shots inside your head onto a screen, this is an unprecedented tool for doing that. The self-professed haters try to clown on the word “democratized,” but any recent video card is now a substitute for “Tom Cruise fighting on top of a moving train” kinds of money.
Is that ethical, without Tom Cruise’s permission? Nope. Yet you can. Such is the nature of freedom. You can tell stories that are straight-up illegal. You don’t need anyone’s permission. They can look just about any way you imagine. There are no rules, for this. That doesn’t mean the future of visual literacy is Fruit Love Island any more than lazy webcomics held back that medium to Mega Man sprite edits.
This is a tool. People make stuff, with tools. It’s gonna get weird.
