Episode
What This Lion King Director Thinks About AI Storytelling & How Hollywood Can Adapt ft. Rob Minkoff
- Podcast
- The AI XR Podcast.
- Published
- Jun 19, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2599
- Processing state
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- https://shows.acast.com/this-week-in-xr-podcast/episodes/what-this-lion-king-director-thinks-about-ai-storytelling-ho
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Summary
What does a Lion King–level director really think about AI “slop,” streaming wars and whether machines can ever tell great stories? On this episode of the AI XR Podcast, Charlie Fink and Ted Schilowitz talk with Rob Minkoff, director of The Lion King, Stuart Little, The Haunted Mansion, Forbidden Kingdom and Paws of Fury, about the future of filmmaking as AI, streaming consolidation and new tools reshape the business. Rob shares how he watched Netflix “eat Hollywood” by doing streaming better than the legacy studios, why Netflix walking away from Warner Bros. and letting Paramount overpay is bad news for creators, and what fewer buyers means for directors and writers trying to sell original work. He explains why he sees AI tools like Seed Dance as potentially both iceberg and Noah’s Ark, and why he believes the average will rise but the cream will still rise higher: tools may let anyone make competent images, but audiences will still chase the one-in-a-thousand voices that have something genuinely new and human to say. In XR News You Should Know, the host cover Anthropic’s standoff with the Pentagon over using large, unstable models for high-stakes military decisions, Netflix walking away from a Warner Bros. deal and collecting a breakup fee while Paramount overpays, streaming brand confusion around HBO/Max and Paramount+, VITURE’s new raise and its patent fight with XREAL over “birdbath” smart-glasses optics, and Google’s Gemini gaining multi-step action capabilities on Samsung and Pixel phones before Apple’s Siri catches up. The conversation digs into whether AI will really make feature films cheaper and more common, or just flood social feeds with short-form “AI slop.” Rob compares AI tools to word processors and home recording studios: they are powerful, but they d…