AI Isn’t Hollywood’s First Script Doctor. But It May Be Its Last

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In the world of cinema, there have been instances where the spotlight shines on a single figure while numerous contributors remain unseen. For example, in 1953, Roman Holiday was credited to Ian McLellan Hunter for the best screenplay Oscar, but it was actually written by Dalton Trumbo who was blacklisted and invisible at the time. The same goes for films like The Wizard of Oz (1939) where Victor Fleming’s name was on the director’s slate, but at least two other directors, George Cukor and King Vidor, had significantly contributed to its tone and look.

Similarly, Poltergeist (1982) is often attributed to Tobe Hooper as the director, but it was actually Steven Spielberg who had a significant influence on its aesthetic and editorial decisions. This pattern of invisible labor has been common in Hollywood since its inception. The screen may suggest singular genius, but behind every auteur is a crowd: collaborators, consultants, fixers, ghosts. Writers who never got the rewrite fee. Editors who salvaged a broken second act. Designers whose mood boards made the pitch deck sing.

Today, AI has joined this list of invisible contributors. While it may seem like the perfect creative partner due to its efficiency and ability to generate multiple ideas quickly, it presents a more unsettling reality for creatives. Writers, producers, and directors are already being asked to develop machine-generated materials without any credit or disclosure. The terms are often explicit: no credit, no disclosure, just a polish pass—then back to the shadows.

This erosion of visibility is not new; it has been happening for decades. In the McCarthy era, entire productions relied on pseudonyms and stand-ins to get scripts by blacklisted writers onto the screen. Studios knew it, agents knew it, everyone knew it, and they went along with the lie because it made the product possible. It was plausible deniability dressed as process.

Today, convenience is driving invisibility. Generative tools let studios pretend that fewer people are involved. Fewer names to credit. Fewer residuals to pay. The assistant becomes the final pass. The designer becomes a prompt operator. The writer becomes the person who just helped out. Streaming platforms have only accelerated this erosion of visibility by truncating title sequences, eliminating credit scrolls, and hiding production information behind menus no casual viewer will ever click through.

Credit is how we record history—who touched the work, who shaped the story. Strip the names away, and the work loses its lineage. The line between human and machine begins to blur. Not because the machine is so smart, but because we stopped pointing to the people.

Real authorship still exists, but it takes effort. It costs more. And it isn’t frictionless. The industry will tell you AI is just a tool. That it is a shortcut. A sketchpad. A helper. But tools do not lobby for credits. Tools do not get residuals. Tools do not speak up when their work is misused. People do.

And if those people are replaced, or folded into the shadows, or quietly cut out of the process, we are not looking at evolution. We are looking at erasure. If we let that lie go unchallenged—if we stop asking who really made the thing—we will not just lose the labor. We will lose the lineage. The accountability. The soul.

So stay through the credits. Watch the names. Count them. Because when they stop scrolling, the silence that follows won’t signal innovation. It will mark extinction.

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2025-07-23 00:54