--- title: "AI “Filmmaker” Gets Funding, Begs For Ideas On What to Actually Make" description: "A self-described a \"filmmaker\" was mocked after asking his followers for an idea for a movie he was supposed to have ready by next week." date: "2026-02-22" modified: "2026-02-22" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-filmmaker-begs-for-ideas" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" --- # AI “Filmmaker” Gets Funding, Begs For Ideas On What to Actually Make ![Five businesspeople gathered around a laptop, all with anxious or hopeful expressions. The central figure, a man in a suit and glasses, has his eyes closed and fingers crossed. The background is bright yellow with a grid pattern. The image has a red overlay effect.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images* An AI "filmmaker" was viciously mocked after begging his followers for ideas on what to make. "I will have 30k to make a fully AI film, what's the plan?" wrote the filmmaker, Ian Durar, in a [tweet](). "I'm supposed to have ideas by next week. cmon guys what do you want to see? I like sci-fi but it feels to obvious for AI." Nothing says creativity like crowdsourcing ideas on X, right? Reid Southen, a film concept artist, responded by lambasting the entire pursuit of AI filmmaking as "completely unserious." "You've got people with $30k begging the internet for ideas by next week because they have nothing of their own to say, it's just slop for the sake of slop," Southen [fumed](). "Embarrassing state of affairs." "Prime example of how tools don't make the filmmaker," [echoed]() actor Luke Barnett. Even other AI evangelists were embarrassed. "This is the wrong question to be asking dumbass. If you're gonna have 30k to make a film, you should be trying to find a script," [scolded]() Gregory Mandarano, a screenwriter who also describes himself as an AI artist. The ideas that Durar's followers came up with, by the way, were horrendous: a film about a tavern in "Ogreville" where every Ogre knows your name; or "an epic sci-fi goontech adventure starting big titty Elsa and dumptruck Moana." AI is supposed to be the future of filmmaking and the arts. It will democratize it, boosters insist, and revolutionize it. Anytime someone posts one of those AI-generated videos with deepfaked actors in them is an occasion for legions of AI bros to sneer that Hollywood's days will soon be numbered. But if all that's the case, how come none of these AI "artists" seem to possess a single creative molecule in their body? Why is every AI video just a [riff on existing stories](), mashing celebrities together [like a kid with their dolls]()? Why are their influences all actual artists and not other bozos typing a prompt into a text window who're convinced that they're also the next Stanley Kubrick? And even if someone genuinely creative leverages AI, any original thought they have gets smoothly averaged out into an algorithmic sludge that they didn't directly make. It's no longer an interesting extension of their own ideas, but of a a vast repository of reconstituted work by other humans. Durar, nonetheless, is adamant that's he's spearheading a revolution akin to digital photography's introduction into filmmaking. "All of those things became the norm, and so will AI," he [wrote](). "I may be early but I’m never wrong. Get over it. It’s just a tool." **More on AI:** [*Unity Says It Has a New Product That Cooks Up Entire Games Using AI*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()