When will AI movies start showing up in theaters nationwide?
It was supposed to be next month.
But when word leaked online that an AI short film contest winner was going to start screening before feature presentations in AMC Theatres, the cinema chain decided not to run the content.
The issue began earlier this week with the inaugural Frame Forward AI Animated Film Festival announcing Igor Alferov’s short film Thanksgiving Day had won the contest. The prize package for included Thanksgiving Day getting a national two-week run in theaters nationwide. When word of this began hitting social media, however, some were dismayed by the prospect of exhibitors embracing AI content, with many singling out AMC Theatres for criticism.
Except the short is not actually programmed by exhibitors, exactly, but by Screenvision Media — a third-party company which manages the 20-minute, advertising-driven pre-show before a theater’s lights go down. Screenvision — which co-organized the festival along with Modern Uprising Studios — provides content to multiple theatrical chains, not just AMC.
After The Hollywood Reporter reached out to AMC about the brewing controversy, the company issued this statement to THR on Thursday: “This content is an initiative from Screenvision Media, which manages pre-show advertising for several movie theatre chains in the United States and runs in fewer than 30 percent of AMC’s U.S. locations. AMC was not involved in the creation of the content or the initiative and has informed Screenvision that AMC locations will not participate.”
It’s not yet clear if other theatrical chains will screen the short instead. Screenvision Media had no immediate comment, but the Frame Forward AI Animated Film Festival issued a statement from co-organizer MUS’s president and studio head Joel Roodman.
“The national theatrical run, while truncated, is only an initial prize exposure for the winning film,” he said. “The film will be adapted for Celeste’s Massive Immersive theatrical venues, the first of which will be built in New York within the year. Shared theatrical experiences are an important cultural bond. The traditional theatrical chains are vital to our cohesion as a society, and are duly cautious [about AI]. However, the media landscape is changing and evolving rapidly. They may be prudent, but it is important to MUS immersive that new and exciting films, filmmakers, cinematic language, and spaces for these shared experiences continue to develop. We will bring new content, and important existing content, to our developing venue network of venues, starting in New York. We will not see the theatrical window wither on our watch.”
The film wouldn’t represent the first time AI content has played in theaters — a collection of film festival AI shorts from Runway’s 2025 AI Film Festival played in 10 Imax theaters in August. But this would likely be the first time a narrative AI film received nationwide exposure in cinemas rather than specialty screenings, and could represent another step in the groundbreaking technology marching into traditional Hollywood spaces.
The Thanksgiving Day film “follows a bear and his platypus assistant who are traveling through the galaxy in a spacecraft that looks like a dumpster. They have to deal with corrupt space-cops, hygiene officials, and a very unusual type of food delivery service as the story unfolds.”
According to Deadline, Kazakhstani filmmaker Alferov used AI tools including Gemini 3.1 and Nano Banana Pro to make the short. Roodman said, “Thanksgiving Day is a masterclass in original storytelling, a wildly inventive journey that balances sharp satire with unexpected emotional payoff, proving that bold imagination with the tools of AI complements the future of animated filmmaking.”