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Happy New Year Hollywood tech nerds!
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Steve’s 2026 Predictions
Well it’s 2026, and you know what that means: time for my outline of what the new year will look like for everyone! I will provide you a month-by-month, minute-by-minute breakdown of the tech and entertainment trends you can expect to encounter in 2026. Get ready!
I’m joking of course, do I have any idea what’s going on most of the time? Not really! And neither do most of the people who do make such predictions, which are often just current vibes-based guesses. Don’t believe me? Check out The Hollywood Reporter’s collection of 2020 predictions, which ran the gamut from the prescient:
Short strikes by the guilds, tech dominance, agency spinoffs and, sadly, fewer major studios.
to right but for the wrong reasons:
A studio will buy a theater chain and the shrinking of windows will finally begin.
to the completely, utterly wrong:
Apple decides to go big and buys Disney or Netflix, or simply decides this business isn't really selling many of its products and decides to get out altogether. Not a big impact on their bottom line, either way.
Sony and Netflix will be bought by Amazon or Apple.
All this to say, there’s no real batting accuracy with this type of forecasting, but the industry trades love to do it anyway, and of course I love nothing better than making fun of them for it!
Here are THR’s 2026 predictions and, you guessed it, this newsletter’s most irritating figure makes her mandated appearance:
A Synthetic Movie Star Will Gain Traction
…the real AI star of 2026 will be something more original – or, AI original. Think a “Tilly Norwood”-type character in a star vehicle, or an entire film – short or feature – made primarily by training a model. Whether it will be accepted by mainstream Hollywood is an open question. And whether it will be good is an even more open question. But it will certainly be viral, and in these attention-economy times, isn’t that what matters?
What’s left to say here but an exasperated, theatrical SIGH. Once again, let us apply the Shrek Rule: would you write about Shrek in the same way you’re describing the “AI actor”??? Let’s see:
The real AI star of 2026 will be something more original – or, AI original. Think a “Shrek”-type character in a star vehicle, or an entire film – short or feature.
This sounds pretty silly to frame as a cool, edgy prediction, yes? Why come to think of it, there is currently a billion-dollar film in theaters featuring synthetic actors trained on performances: it’s called Avatar: Fire and Ash! Please stop being bamboozled by AI grifting!
Conversely, I do agree with THR’s take here:
A New Major Free Streamer Launches
Between them, the Roku Channel, Fox’s Tubi and Paramount’s Pluto TV account for about 6 percent of all TV viewing in the United States in a given month. As viewers have gotten used to (if not exactly thrilled about) streaming with ads, AVOD and FAST services have mushroomed with relatively low-cost libraries and an experience more akin to scrolling through a cable guide than hunting through endless menus in search of something to watch. The market seems ripe for a big media player with a deep library — say, an NBCUniversal or a Disney — to gain a quick foothold in a growing segment of the streaming market.
I’ve actually written a version of this prediction myself all the way back in late 2023. AVOD and FAST channels have no upfront cost to the consumer and would make a much more appealing new product than another monthly subscription.
I would guess a likely candidate would be the resurrection of the defunct AVOD streaming service Crackle, which as the original ad-supported service already has some name recognition.
The Wrap has its own 2026 outlook, more interesting to me because they seem to have collected some actual data as opposed to just going off vibes. Particularly intriguing were the survey results on audience interest in AI-generated media, which suggested no majority interest in it, especially for novels, albums, or podcasts. Somebody tell Inception Point!
What Did You Watch Over the Holidays?
Over the holiday break I ventured to the theater and saw both Marty Supreme and Avatar: Fire and Ash, two films whose productions probably couldn’t be any more different!
I loved this Variety interview with legendary production designer Jack Fisk, who goes into detail about how he recreated 1950s New York City for Marty Supreme, including how they obscured modern buildings during production. Hint: it was mostly practical!
“We actually shot Orchard Street on Orchard Street,” Fisk says. “We found a store there that we wanted to make the Northridge shoe store, and right next to it was a brand-new hotel. So we had a problem up and down the street. Everybody had modernized their buildings and put in tall plate glass,” he recalls. Plus, the street signs were different, and there was graffiti everywhere, which wasn’t there in the 1950s. Fisk explains that set designers built a modular system of tenement fronts that covered the ground-level building fronts.
Three If By Space has its own fantastic interview with the visual effects team behind Avatar, including crazy details like having to account for actor Jack Champion growing over a foot over the course of production:
The other challenge was we were working with a 16-year-old. He was growing like a weed. So, from the start of filming to the end of filming, I think he grew maybe a foot, maybe a foot and a half. It was crazy. So our numbers, our proportions, always kept changing. Yeah, every week, it was like, ‘Okay, we gotta go— the scale’s wrong again, because Jack’s grown again.
If you haven’t hit the theater to see Avatar yet, there’s a helpful breakdown from Forbes on the best ways to see it. Seeing Avatar in the theater remains the only time I’m ever consistently impressed by 3D and HFR presentations!
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool and interesting links about Hollywood and technology:
Spotify bets big on video. (link)
2025’s best overlooked films. (link)
Fixing the streaming wish list problem. (link)