AI is Bollywood's cheapest new hire
Daybreak
The episode explores how the Bollywood film industry is leveraging AI to combat severe financial distress and rising production costs. It de
Key takeaways
- Vikram Malhotra of Abundacia Entertainment predicts the rise of one-man created blockbusters.
- Saumil Gandhi of Zanadu suggests a 70-person film crew could eventually shrink to just seven people.
Main topics
- Bollywood's post-COVID economic crisis
- AI integration in film production
Notable quotes
We are not far away from a one-lam created blockbuster.
Conclusion
AI is emerging as a vital survival tool for Bollywood to manage high-r
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Mark my words, we are not far away from a one-man created blockbuster. That's what Vikram Malhotra, the founder and CEO of Abundacia Entertainment, said to my colleague Shivika Bakshi. It's the studio behind movies like Breathe Into the Shadows, Jalsa and Shreddy. He is also the former chief operating officer at Viacom 18 Motion Pictures. And he believes that AI will turn entertainment on its head. Saumil Gandhi, the founder of an AI-native film studio called Zanadu, takes that belief a step further. He told us that it's now possible for one person to make a two-and-a-half-hour film at the scale of Game of Thrones in just 10 days. He even believes that in the very near future, a 70-person film crew can become a team of seven. All of this is big talk from the Hindi film industry, which has been in financial distress since COVID. Based on the industry estimates, 9 out of every 10 films flop. The fees for star actors can take a huge chunk out of even a hit movie's economics. And producers who can't sell finance often turn to an unorganized lending market that charges 18-60 % interest in a year. The current apparent theater recovery also masks a problem. You see, cinema footfall has barely grown in 2025, which is why Bollywood is turning to AI for more than just cheaper, quicker films. It also wants back some control over this punishing economics. That hope is changing how films get made. It is now becoming more and more possible to keep the core creative talent, the director, the writer, the editor, and hand over the technical work to AI. AI can play a role in the whole value chain from a faint idea to the final release. It can generate shots from scratch or even mix with live action for hybrid cinema. Malhotra, though, still says that the beauty of cinema lies in its connect with the audience and believes that stories must still be built around core human emotions and lived experiences. Yet, he is intent on AI. In fact, since last year, His studio has even launched an AI content division called ION. In February this year, it even partnered with InVideo, an AI video generation platform, to commit 100 crore rupees to an AI-driven film production studio. Of course, Bollywood is not the first industry to have this reckoning. Three years ago, Bollywood's writers and actors went on historic strikes, putting guardrails around AI use in creative work by studios. Since then, the relationship between studios and creative talent has improved. Bollywood, though, has had no such organized pushback. And so, it's embracing AI anyway, pushed less by its belief in the technology and more by desperation. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Chaitra Ruggies, and every day of the week, my co-host, Nikita Sharma, and I will bring you one news story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 28th of September. Speaker 1 (3:30) Vivek Ancalia is the founder of an AI studio called Amazing Indian Stories. It has built fully AI-generated features and Ancalia told Shiveka that the studio's success ratio is at best 10 % as an industry. But that risk has gotten harder to manage after the