For decades, many in couture complained that fashion stopped being run by designers and started being run by management consultants, luxury conglomerates and quarterly growth targets. Music, once shaped by labels and radio programmers, increasingly became governed by streaming algorithms and social media virality. Journalism underwent a similar transformation, as newsroom metrics, SEO rankings and click-through rates steadily reshaped editorial priorities.
Now, a similar anxiety is emerging around storytelling itself.
Also Read: From bit role, AI's now the hero of entertainment industry
As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly enters the entertainment industry, filmmakers, writers, actors and executives are confronting an uncomfortable possibility: what happens when stories are no longer driven primarily by human creativity, but by systems optimised for scale, speed, engagement and intellectual property extraction?
That future is already taking shape.
More than a decade after the release of Raanjhanaa — a tragic romance that became a cult favourite — producer Eros International released a new version of the film in August last year, where the protagonist survives at the end. The altered cut used AI to replace Dhanush’s death scene with a hospital-bed recovery sequence.
The backlash was immediate. Director Aanand L. Rai said the alternate ending had “stripped the film of its soul,” while Dhanush warned that such interventions threatened “the integrity of storytelling and the legacy of cinema.”
But audiences still showed up. According to a 2026 Reuters investigation, 35% of available tickets for the Tamil AI-altered re-release were sold during its release month — 12 percentage points higher than the Indian box office occupancy average that year. Encouraged by that response, Eros Media World is now reportedly reviewing its 3,000-title catalogue to identify films suitable for AI-assisted adaptation and alternate endings.
For years, the debate around AI in entertainment has revolved around a familiar fear: will AI replace writers, actors and filmmakers? But that question may already be outdated.
