Summer 2026: AI and Hollywood are Colliding. Which studios are adopting AI fastest, which filmmakers are inviting the tech and which are rejecting it, what are the latest tools and trends? Read the latest CONVERGER newsletter to find out. converger.kevinbankston.com/publish/post...

Why is Wonder Woman storming the Oval Office to confront the President? Across the Marvel & DC universes right now, authoritarian villains and billionaire oligarchs rule, and the heroes are now insurgents fighting the power. Gee, wonder what that's about? converger.kevinbankston.com/p/when-villa...

Why is Iron Man teaching people to make Molotov cocktails? Across Marvel & DC comics, in an obvious response to current politics, authoritarian villains & billionaire oligarchs now rule while the heroes are insurgents fighting the power. Read more: converger.kevinbankston.com/p/when-villa...

Would you be surprised to learn that the most mainstream anti-authoritarian art right now is in...corporate comic books? Subscribe now at converger.kevinbankston.com to catch tomorrow's essay, "When Villains Rule: How Marvel and DC Comics Became the Unexpected Anti-Trump Art Form."

Yesterday @cdt.org hosted allies from across the political spectrum--repping tech left & innovation right, civil liberties & cybersecurity, public interest & business interest--in a press conference condemning the White House's continued censorship of Anthropic's AI models.

Sadly ironic that today's the 55th anniversary of an overreaching White House going to the Supreme Court to try to block the Pentagon Papers' publication, and now with Anthropic's Fable we're seeing another historic prior restraint by an equally lawless administration. #FreeFable

My brother's a Hollywood creative exec. I dragged him to the 'AI on the Lot' conference to see the future. Then I interviewed him: “They keep talking about saving time and money. I live in Burbank, man—that ‘time and money’ are all my neighbors.” converger.kevinbankston.com/i/201583118/...

Backrooms and Obsession have set off a small-budget big-box office revolution, but Parsons and Barker are just two of the many creators making the YouTube-to-cinema leap. Check out my roundup of the next gen of viral video-to-horror feature directors: converger.kevinbankston.com/i/196771089/...

In LA today for the AI on the Lot conference, looking forward to meeting new people & learning new things about the intersection of AI and film, which I'm covering in my tech & media newsletter Converger (latest issue at converger.kevinbankston.com/p/converger-...). Drop a line if you'll be around!

I was delighted to be interviewed for Sophie Raseman's fabulous American Childhood newsletter, offering advice for her 9 yr-old who wants to start making comics. The pictured graphic novel—The Cartoonists Club—is THE first book any parent should hand to their kid who wants to explore comics-making.

Panel description:

I've seen nothing in the mainstream press about the massive wave of automated demonetization hitting AI creators on YouTube so I wrote 1500 words about it. Google pushes video generation with one hand while punishing it with the other. kevinbankston.substack.com/i/196771089/...

For the media nerds: 1500 words on Noah Hawley’s genius at expanding franchises in an additive rather than extractive way, comparing the different directions he took with Fargo, Legion, & Alien: Earth: "Noah Hawley, the Multidimensional Franchise Expander" kevinbankston.substack.com/p/converger-...

Issue 2 of my Substack CONVERGER is out now! With features on YouTube's chilling crackdown on AI creators, the internet-to-theaters horror movie pipeline, Noah Hawley's franchise-expanding genius, and AI labs' hypocrisy about everyone else's data scraping. kevinbankston.substack.com/p/converger-...

I got to have a great conversation with legendary director Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, Sin City, Spy Kids) when I visited his Troublemaker Studios in Austin, TX. Check out what he had to say about generative AI and his creative process here: kevinbankston.substack.com/i/194807541/...

Did you seen all the online chatter last month about how the Supreme Court said works created with generative AI aren’t protected by copyright? Well, the anti-AI twitterati were wrong. Read CONVERGER to find out why. t.co/vwJumVjbQY

I think of Noah Hawley as the 3D franchise expander: FARGO: he takes the Coens’ tones & structures FORWARD into different contexts LEGION: he goes DEEP down one weirdo X-Men character vertical ALIEN: EARTH: he BROADENS the concept horizontally to new aliens and artificial species

Ben Affleck and Netflix haven’t been upfront about the tech behind InterPositive, Affleck’s stealth AI startup that Netflix just bought in a deal worth up to $600 mil. Want to know what they’re not telling you? Find out here. (Pictured: Sad Afflecks) kevinbankston.substack.com/i/194807541/...

CONVERGER is here! My new biweekly Substack mapping the content singularity will bring you news and views on the borderland between new tech and old media, including AI's impact on Hollywood, copyright, culture and more. Check out the super-sized first edition now at kevinbankston.substack.com.

CONVERGER is coming! Tomorrow I'm launching a biweekly Substack newsletter mapping the content singularity where AI and the internet collapse all media into one. Subscribe now to receive my super-sized first edition! kevinbankston.substack.com

Internet + AI policy friends: RSVP to join @cdt.org at @georgetownlaw.bsky.social on Thurs March 26 for a lively morning of panels and talks on internet scraping and the future of the open web in the AI age--with perspectives from AI labs, web publishers, scrapers, & a range of experts.

Coming soon. A short story of Elon Musk's Mars in 42 (or 69) posts. The moon is but a stepping stone. Mars *will* be his. Prepare yourself. (Pictured: Elon Musk, God Emperor of Mars, aka G-LON)

With the rise of agents, I fear we’re entering the Maelstrom. That’s what Peter Watts called the future internet in his novel of the same name: a rapidly evolving digital jungle of countless fast-breeding agents warring against agents, red in tooth & claw. Read and see the future

Are comics actually the popular medium most directly grappling with the Trump era? Can’t be coincidence that DC’s Absolute and Marvel’s Ultimate universes were both created and ruled by villains or that Doc Doom recently ran the mainline Marvel U or that Batman’s beating up nazis.

Can anyone from DC @indivisible.org or Mobilize explain how I’m supposed to attend a protest with a private location? Or are you actually demanding an email address before you’ll show it, and prioritizing your list-building over attendance (and the privacy of attendants)??

And here’s the other side of the business card with some amazing art from @federicosabbatini.bsky.social

So I’m trying something new! Hit me up if you’re at #NYCC2025

send the 82nd Airborne into PORTLAND?! To fight who, these guys? media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2l...

For all his staunch anticommunism, the near future fate of Earth in Robert Heinlein's future history was a christo-fascist police state. Once again, our techbro elite has read one of their heroes' warnings as a design spec. And once again, a reminder: this threat has been building a long, long time.

I was grinning ear to ear by the end of Superman (and for most of its runtime). The hero we need and the hero we deserve right now. Kindness is indeed punk rock.