When Seoul Beats Burbank
Hollywood Guilds think the threat is Netflix and AI. Tinsel town’s real enemy could be a kid in Korea with an iPhone and NanoBanana.
When we made Heroes back in 2006, NBC was obsessed with international sales. Every story decision got filtered through “Will this play in Germany?“ We hit this via the transmedia dance - comics in different languages, localized web series. But we were still the gatekeepers. Stories came from our Gower Gulch, got translated, shipped out. Hollywood created, the world consumed.
That model is dunzo.
Netflix’s biggest hits? Squid Game, Money Heist, Physical: 100. Not born in Hollywood. International productions that went global. The real disruption will be more than AI replacing scribblers. It’s AI replacing Hollywood’s monopoly on production capability.
The Tools Went Planetary
For a century, Hollywood didn’t just make movies. It made the machinery that made movies. You wanted to make something people could see? You came through LA.
Now, a filmmaker in Manila with a phone and Runway can make something comparable to what’s getting a greenlight in Burbank. Nigerian creators are dropping AI-generated telenovelas direct to audiences. A French director made Tribeca with five people and some laptops.
On Hannibal, Bryan Fuller obsessed over making every frame cinematic. Cost a fortune. Now I’m watching shorts from kids in Korea with the same visual vibes - for basically zero dollars.
AI didn’t make them talented. It enabled their talent to execute on a vision.
Your Weird Is Your Weapon
Hollywood Guilds are panicking about Netflix buying WB and AI replacing scribblers. Wrong fears. The real threat is AI erasing Hollywood’s advantage in access to the equipment, infrastructure, and distribution.
What can’t be erased? Emotional truth.
The Gates Are Gone
If you’re a scribbler trying to break in, good news: you don’t need Hollywood. Bad news: neither does anyone else.
Build stories that speak to your experience but resonate beyond it. Stay emotionally weird. That’s your force multiplier. You can waste energy breaking through the gates of the Burbank legacy system, or recognize the new system doesn’t have any gates.
Global storytellers aren’t waiting for Hollywood’s permission to film their flicks. Neither should you. Better get back to scribbling!