Bridging Hollywood + AI Innovation: Divergent Producer Pouya Shahbazian on the Studio of the Future

Staircase Studios AI is now in its second year of a bold experiment: building the ideal hybrid movie studio—one that blends the craftsmanship and scale of major Hollywood filmmaking with the most advanced AI production techniques.

After spending two decades inside traditional studios and networks—producing multiple #1 box office films, earning award nominations, and generating over $800 million in global box office revenue—I’m now applying that experience to a future-facing studio model.

With a lean team of artists and engineers, we’re developing feature films in collaboration with some of Hollywood’s most visionary storytellers. The goal? A truly Hollywood-native and AI-native studio designed for the next era of content creation.

In this conversation, I’ll unpack what it means to reinvent the studio model from the inside out—exploring the creative possibilities and structural challenges of AI filmmaking, navigating an industry rooted in a century of legacy systems, and imagining what’s ahead for storytellers and technologists across media and entertainment.