I recently created Spider-Man – Above Karachi, an AI-generated short film that imagines what Spider-Man might look like if his story unfolded in Karachi, Pakistan.
The idea started with a simple creative question: Can generative AI help filmmakers tell culturally specific stories that would otherwise be difficult or expensive to produce?
Rather than using AI only to create individual shots, I approached the project as a filmmaking exercise—thinking about visual direction, composition, character consistency, movement, atmosphere, editing, and storytelling.
Placing Spider-Man in Karachi also created an interesting creative challenge. The city itself needed to feel authentic while working within the visual language of a superhero film. Karachi's streets, architecture, traffic, weather, and everyday environment became part of the storytelling.
For me, the project was less about proving that AI can replace traditional filmmaking and more about exploring what becomes possible when filmmakers combine cinematic experience with generative AI tools.
AI filmmaking is developing quickly, but I believe the filmmaker's creative direction remains central. The technology can help expand what we can visualize, experiment with, and produce—but the story still needs a human perspective.
I'd love to hear from other filmmakers and creators:
If generative AI removed some of the traditional production limitations, what kind of story would you want to make?
