Rather than post this in the "What Movie Have You Watched" thread (where I'm currently talking to myself), because this is one I haven't watched but would like to, I decided to start a new thread as it's a broader topic.
The new documentary film Eno, unsurprisingly about Brian Eno, is released next month. Perhaps also unsurprisingly, given it's about an innovative creative thinker with often off-centre ideas, it's not a standard film format. It will be shown using generative software developed specially for this film. By my shaky understanding, the film-makers have amassed a store of archive and interview footage. Apart from a fixed beginning and end, and a few fixed anchor points along the way, each showing of the film will be otherwise generated by the software by drawing footage from the database. It's been designed to do this so as to create a logical narrative rather than just a jumble of material. The director says each showing will be unique, rather like each performance of a stage play or a gig.
The first UK screening is in London at the Barbican, with Eno introducing it. I'm intrigued how cinema screenings will work, and presume they'll be streamed to venues but I'm not sure.
In a broader sense, will this development have much impact on the film industry, or will this be a one-off? I'm guessing somewhere in between. I can't see big studios going for it and releasing a generative Marvel Avengers, Star Wars or Batman film for example. But I wonder if smaller scale, more niche film-makers will start to take it up, for example producing generative dramas in which the plot details and trajectory, maybe even the endings, change with each screening.