Paul Schrader Predicts the First AI-Made Feature Film in Two Years — and He Already Has the Script
While Hollywood frets over AI, Paul Schrader is leaning in, predicting the first AI-crafted feature could arrive within two years — and he says he already has the script to make it happen.
Paul Schrader has seen every big swing this industry has taken. New Hollywood. The blockbuster era. The indie wave at the end of the 80s and into the 90s. Now he is looking at AI and basically saying: bring it on.
Schrader thinks an all-AI feature is around the corner
"I think we are only two years away from the first AI feature."
That is Schrader, via Variety, and he is not just talking hypotheticals. He told Vanity Fair he was literally on the phone about one of his scripts and caught himself thinking: this would be perfect to make entirely with AI.
Why he is not scared of the tech
Schrader frames AI as exactly what a lot of filmmakers want it to be: a tool. His take is that storytellers have always translated emotion into different codes. A novelist uses words to describe a face. An actor uses their own craft to communicate the same feeling. In his view, an AI artist becomes a kind of pixel sculptor, shaping the face and the emotion directly on the image, the way an author shapes a reaction on the page. It is a very Schrader way to look at it: pragmatic and about control.
Meanwhile, the rest of Hollywood is already using AI in the boring parts
He also points to a place where AI is quietly entrenched: script coverage. If you do not live in that world, coverage is the summary and analysis readers deliver to execs so they can triage stacks of scripts. Schrader says AI already does that job better than average humans and, crucially, without the soft pressure to like something because the client paying for the read wants a thumbs-up. He adds he would not be shocked if AI started cranking out film reviews too. That sound you hear is a thousand angry comment sections revving up.
The bigger picture: the tech is racing ahead
Schrader is making these comments while the AI machine keeps lapping itself. OpenAI's Sora 2 can spit out full-blown scenes from a text prompt now, and there is already a flare-up around what is being billed as the first fully AI actress, Tilly Norwood. Whether you are thrilled or horrified, the pace is undeniable.
- Schrader tells Vanity Fair he sees AI as a tool, not a threat.
- To Variety, he predicts the first all-AI feature within two years.
- He has a script he thinks could be made entirely with AI.
- His analogy: writers and actors each use a code to express emotion; with AI, you sculpt the face and feeling directly in pixels.
- He says AI already outperforms average script coverage and is immune to the usual bias toward satisfying the payer.
- He would not be surprised if AI starts writing movie reviews.
- All of this lands as tools like OpenAI's Sora 2 generate full scenes from prompts and the Tilly Norwood AI actress experiment kicks up controversy.
Bottom line
Schrader is not predicting the end of filmmakers. He is betting the craft bends around the tech, not the other way around. And if he is right about that two-year timeline, someone is going to press export on the first feature-length experiment sooner than most people are ready for. He sounds ready.