News: 0180832336

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AMC Theatres Will Refuse To Screen AI Short Film After Online Uproar (hollywoodreporter.com)

(Friday February 20, 2026 @05:40PM (msmash) from the uncharted-territories dept.)


An anonymous reader shares a report:

> When will AI movies start showing up in theaters nationwide? It was supposed to be next month. But when word leaked online that an AI short film contest winner was going to start screening before feature presentations in AMC Theatres, the cinema chain [1]decided not to run the content .

>

> The issue began earlier this week with the inaugural Frame Forward AI Animated Film Festival announcing Igor Alferov's short film Thanksgiving Day had won the contest. The prize package for included Thanksgiving Day getting a national two-week run in theaters nationwide. When word of this began hitting social media, however, some were dismayed by the prospect of exhibitors embracing AI content, with many singling out AMC Theatres for criticism.

>

> Except the short is not actually programmed by exhibitors, exactly, but by Screenvision Media -- a third-party company which manages the 20-minute, advertising-driven pre-show before a theater's lights go down. Screenvision -- which co-organized the festival along with Modern Uprising Studios -- provides content to multiple theatrical chains, not just AMC. After The Hollywood Reporter reached out to AMC about the brewing controversy, the company issued this statement to THR on Thursday: "This content is an initiative from Screenvision Media, which manages pre-show advertising for several movie theatre chains in the United States and runs in fewer than 30 percent of AMC's U.S. locations. AMC was not involved in the creation of the content or the initiative and has informed Screenvision that AMC locations will not participate."



[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ai-short-movie-amc-theaters-1236509143/



Episodes (Score:4)

by michaelmalak ( 91262 )

Based on 5-10 minute videos like [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zZP1uzp_YQ [youtube.com], I look forward to feature-length fan replacements for Episodes VII, VIII, IX. Perhaps within a year?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zZP1uzp_YQ

Re: (Score:3)

by RobinH ( 124750 )

Wow, that was... absolutely terrible.

I'm disgusted (Score:4, Funny)

by greytree ( 7124971 )

Where can I stream it ?

Re: (Score:2)

by greytree ( 7124971 )

Found it here. Don't bother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdfztBW_VEE

Re: (Score:2)

by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

It's really not that bad, aside from maybe being a bit too dark for younger audiences. I'm assuming most of the backlash is because a lot of people hate the idea of "art" that has been prompted* into existence. Seems like they don't know the history of animation where, prior to CGI, producing hand-drawn animation could almost be considered a tedious sweatshop job.

* Ironically, we used to consider writing a form of creative expression too, but I suppose once you feed it into a computer that goes right out

Re: (Score:3)

by greytree ( 7124971 )

I didn't like it because I found it bleak, unfunny and uninteresting.

AI or human, I would have thought the same.

The Network... (Score:1, Insightful)

by found404 ( 5415512 )

Hollywood is spending a ton of money (partially funded & directed by gov agencies) on an army of bots and shills to target anyone using AI that may encroach on their territory. Hollywood isn't just about entertainment, it's about manipulating the population to behave a certain way. Their well-documented close ties with the government speaks to this. Their well-documented close ties to a specific foreign nation speaks to this. They spent a ton of money buying out the threat that TikTok posed to continue

Re: (Score:1)

by Anonymous Coward

> Hollywood is spending a ton of money (partially funded & directed by gov agencies) on an army of bots and shills to target anyone using AI that may encroach on their territory. Hollywood isn't just about entertainment, it's about manipulating the population to behave a certain way.

> Their well-documented close ties with the government speaks to this. Their well-documented close ties to a specific foreign nation speaks to this. They spent a ton of money buying out the threat that TikTok posed to continue gaslighting, they sure aren't going to let AI content creators into the conversation. That's laughable.

> So like many others, I ask... where can I stream this?

Get this person some tinfoil...STAT!

#define JFFS2_MAGIC_BITMASK 0x1985
#define KSAMTIB_CIGAM_2SFFJ 0x5981 /* For detecting wrong-endian fs */

- from include/linux/jffs2.h