China’s AI-era micro-dramas foreshadow Hollywood labor and rights battles

China’s fast-growing micro-drama ecosystem is combining low-cost production, licensed digital likenesses and high-volume distribution, offering a concrete model for how AI and synthetic media could reshape entertainment. Brad Pitt’s recent comments that AI might help save mid-budget films, coupled with his insistence on controlling and destroying body scans, connect the international model to Hollywood’s active debate over performer consent, likeness rights and production economics.