Rewriting Reality: Netflix Taps Generative AI for a Sci-Fi First in El Eternauta

In a milestone moment for the entertainment industry, Netflix has taken its first major leap into generative AI, using the technology to bring a dramatic sequence in its new Argentine sci-fi drama El Eternauta to life. What once demanded months of laborious visual effects work has now been executed in a fraction of the time, thanks to AI’s growing role in content creation. While the debate over AI’s place in Hollywood continues to rage, Netflix’s move represents a calculated step forward—both a cost-saving innovation and a bold experiment in reshaping how stories are told on screen.

A Storm of Innovation in Buenos Aires

El Eternauta is based on the iconic 1950s Argentine comic created by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. The story unfolds in a dystopian Buenos Aires overtaken by a mysterious snowfall and alien invasion. For Netflix, the challenge was clear: depict a hauntingly real, apocalyptic city without ballooning the production budget or delaying schedules. That’s where generative AI came in.

In one of the series’ pivotal moments, a large-scale building collapse was orchestrated not with traditional CGI or elaborate practical effects, but with AI-powered visual effects created in partnership with Eyeline Studios, Netflix’s in-house VFX and virtual production division. According to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the entire sequence was generated ten times faster than it would have taken using conventional methods. Without generative AI, Sarandos explained, the scene “just wouldn’t have been feasible for a show in that budget.”

The implications are as striking as the visual spectacle itself. By using generative AI to complete high-end sequences in weeks rather than months, Netflix isn’t just accelerating production timelines—it’s redefining the economics of visual storytelling. What was once the domain of blockbuster cinema budgets is now within reach for international series and genre projects that operate on tighter margins.

Tech-Powered Storytelling, Human-Guided Vision

Despite the futuristic tools behind the scenes, Netflix executives were quick to clarify that this is not a story of AI replacing artists. Sarandos described the process as “real people doing real work with better tools.” The technology wasn’t used to automate creativity but to augment the capabilities of human teams. From concept to execution, it was VFX artists, designers, and showrunners guiding the process, using generative AI as a collaborator, not a substitute.

This distinction is critical in the current cultural landscape. Hollywood’s relationship with AI remains fraught, especially in the wake of the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes. Those strikes, fueled in part by fears of AI-driven job displacement, resulted in landmark agreements that put guardrails around how AI can be used in scripting, voice replication, and digital doubles. By situating AI use within clearly defined artistic workflows and emphasizing human oversight, Netflix appears to be threading the needle, pursuing innovation without triggering another labor standoff.

Greg Peters, Sarandos’s co-CEO, further contextualized the move within Netflix’s broader ambitions. He emphasized that the company sees generative AI as a strategic advantage, not only for VFX but also for pre-visualization, shot planning, and even content discovery. In the long term, Netflix hopes that AI can help viewers find exactly what they want to watch through natural voice commands and that it might revolutionize how the platform assembles and personalizes advertising creatives. But for now, its most visible impact is visual—a glimpse of collapsing buildings in a snow-covered Buenos Aires.

A Door Opens for Global Productions

The decision to showcase AI-enhanced VFX in El Eternauta is also a strategic nod to Netflix’s growing commitment to international content. In recent years, the streaming giant has significantly expanded its investment in Latin America, Asia, and Europe, recognizing that global stories have the power to capture worldwide audiences. But high-concept genre series from outside the U.S. have often struggled with budget limitations, particularly when it comes to matching the scale of American blockbusters.

By leveraging AI, Netflix is effectively lowering the barrier to entry for world-class production values. A sci-fi epic filmed in Argentina can now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a Marvel or HBO production, at least visually. This democratization of special effects could reshape the global TV landscape, enabling creators from more regions and backgrounds to tell ambitious stories without compromise.

Moreover, it hints at an era where digital tools make it easier to visualize complex narratives and design worlds that would otherwise be too expensive or time-consuming to build. For emerging markets, this could unlock a new wave of speculative fiction, fantasy, and other effects-heavy genres that traditionally required Hollywood budgets and infrastructure.

Between Art and Automation: The Industry’s Crossroads

Netflix’s announcement comes at a pivotal moment in the ongoing discourse around AI in entertainment. While the tools have matured rapidly, the regulatory, ethical, and labor frameworks around them are still catching up. Artists and unions remain vigilant, wary of how these technologies might be misused or weaponized against the very workers who create the heart of the entertainment experience.

The company’s careful messaging—emphasizing augmentation over replacement—is no doubt a response to these concerns. But some industry observers worry that even well-intentioned uses of AI could inadvertently lead to a gradual deskilling of creative labor or erode the demand for certain categories of jobs over time. For example, if pre-visualization and VFX can be handled more quickly and cheaply with AI, what happens to the freelance artists who once did that work manually?

Still, others argue that resisting AI’s march is futile—and potentially self-defeating. Instead, they advocate for a future in which artists are trained to use AI tools fluently, making them more productive and giving them new avenues for creative expression. In this view, generative AI becomes a digital paintbrush, not a robotic painter. The key lies in transparency, consent, and fair compensation—principles that the 2023 strike settlements helped to enshrine, but which must continue to evolve alongside the technology.

A Preview of Entertainment’s Future

If Netflix’s experiment with El Eternauta is any indication, the industry is approaching a threshold moment. The ability to generate complex visuals at a fraction of the time and cost could unlock an entirely new model for television production—one that is faster, more global, and more visually ambitious than ever before.

Consider a future in which genre series are no longer prohibitively expensive, where sci-fi and fantasy worlds can be rendered photorealistically by lean teams working on tight schedules. Or imagine a viewer interface that understands natural language queries like “Show me a dark 1980s psychological thriller,” powered by AI that understands context, taste, and mood. These are not distant hypotheticals but tangible directions in which Netflix is already investing.

And yet, there’s a palpable tension running through it all. How much automation is too much? Where is the line between a helpful tool and a creative usurper? As studios, unions, and audiences grapple with these questions, Netflix’s move will likely serve as both a case study and a catalyst.

The collapse of a building in Buenos Aires may be the first on-screen result, but the larger structure at stake is the entire entertainment production model. It is being rebuilt, piece by digital piece, in the image of a world where human vision and machine intelligence co-author the future of storytelling.

Conclusion: The Age of Augmented Creativity

In El Eternauta, the snow is deadly, the invaders alien, and the cityscape terrifyingly transformed. But behind the scenes, it is the transformation of the creative process that may prove most lasting. With its foray into generative AI, Netflix has not only raised the bar for what’s possible in television production, it has also reignited the debate over what storytelling in the digital age should look like.

The move is as much philosophical as it is technical. It represents a bet on a future where machines don’t replace artists but rather empower them to achieve more, faster, and on a global scale. Whether that bet pays off in terms of quality, efficiency, and creative diversity remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: the age of augmented creativity has arrived, and it’s already rewriting the script.

Netflix’s use of generative AI in El Eternauta isn’t just a visual effect—it’s a signal flare for the entire entertainment industry. The question now is not whether AI will change storytelling, but how—and who will get to shape that change.