AI Takes Center Stage Summer Cinema’s Three Big Moments
Say goodbye to the days where artificial intelligence simply generated ideas and images. This summer, audiences saw how AI was used on big screens around the world. From reimagining a Hollywood classic, to headlining its own film festival, to creating a full-length animated feature film, here’s a quick round-up of how AI has shaped moviegoing in summer 2025 and why these milestones matter.
A Classic Reimagined: The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere
Las Vegas’s Sphere turned heads in August when they debuted “The Wizard of Oz at The Sphere”, an immersive re-release of the 1939 film. Sphere Studios and Warner Bros. Discovery partnered with Google DeepMind and Google Cloud to use AI tools such as Imagen, Veo, and Gemini to restore the film in 16k and fill in missing details, in order to fill the Sphere’s 160,00 square foot screen. This experience goes beyond visuals. The Sphere uses haptic seats, environmental effects, and even custom scents to make audiences feel as though they are there with Dorothy in Kansas and in Oz. The film’s songs were remastered and re-recorded to play across 167,000 speakers, surrounding audiences with a level of sound and detail unique to The Sphere.
For film lovers, this is a case study in how AI can be used as a restoration and expansion tool. At the same time, it also raises the question of how far can filmmakers go in “improving” classics before enhancement becomes a yellow brick road that leads us right past the original magic of the film.
Audiences clearly don’t think we’ve gone too far yet though – AI’s reimagined Oz is now making $2 million a day.
AI Film Festival Brings Generated Cinema to IMAX Theaters WIP
Runaway and IMAX took generative cinema to the big screen this August with the 2025 AI Film Festival, the first of its kind to be shown in IMAX theaters. The festival featured 10 short films in 10 theaters nationwide, including right here in Boston. The films were created using AI tools for writing, voice, and image generation, and were selected from over 6,000 submissions worldwide.
The films, which run between two and 10 minutes, ranged from explorations of memory to sci-fi epics like “One”, in which a crew of transhumans search for a new home after Earth collapses, only to meet lost souls who want their bodies back. Other finalists included “Jailbird”, a darkly funny story about a chicken whose life changes when it’s sent to human prison.
The festival is a front-row look into how AI is being used as a visual video creation tool, not just a production shortcut.
OpenAI Announces Critterz, an AI-Made Animated Feature Film
OpenAI, the company that brought you ChatGPT, recently announced that they are teaming up with the writers of Paddington 3 (“Paddington in Peru”) to make a feature-length animated film called “Critterz.” With a timeline of nine months, aiming for a premiere at the 2026 Cannes film festival, the project has a budget of $30 million. Produced in partnership with Vertigo Films and Native Foreign, the film will be made with a hybrid workflow, meaning human artists will draw the initial character sketches and other visual concepts, as well as record the voice talent, which will then be fed into Open AI’s GPT-5 and image generation models such as DALLE.
The film is an expansion of the short film which was an animated science documentary/comedy that explores a hidden forest inhabited by mysterious little Critterz with distinct personalities. The narrator guides viewers through the hidden forest, until some of the Critterz themselves let the viewers know what life is actually like in the forest. The short film currently holds a 3.2 out of 10 on IMDB, based on 37 reviews.
“Critterz” represents a new milestone in the world of AI. AI is now moving from a supporting tool to a co-creator in mainstream film making. Its 2026 Cannes debut will be a test of whether or not audiences are ready to embrace a movie built and animated from the help of an artificial mind.
Rolling the Credits on AI’s Breakout Summer
These three moments showcase that summer 2025 was a turning point for AI’s use in film, as AI was used to improve the past, showcase the present, and build the future. Hollywood is beginning to treat AI as a serious creative partner. Whether you are excited or uneasy, one thing is clear: AI isn’t just coming soon to a theater near you, it’s already there.
- AI Takes Center Stage Summer Cinema’s Three Big Moments - October 10, 2025
