The romantic drama Saiyaara almost had an ending crafted by AI. According to The Economic Times, the filmmakers, stuck in a creative deadlock over the climax, briefly turned to ChatGPT for inspiration. While AI has been creeping into film promotions, using it to script a pivotal scene for a major Hindi movie is still a rare move.
The Creative Stalemate
The Saiyaara writing team had been debating the conclusion for weeks. Multiple drafts were scrapped for failing to balance emotional depth with realism. In the middle of this stalemate, an assistant writer suggested trying ChatGPT. The team fed the AI a detailed prompt describing the characters’ journeys, emotional stakes, and the central conflict leading up to the climax.
Within seconds, ChatGPT delivered three fully written endings in a dialogue-heavy style.
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The AI’s Standout Scene
One version instantly drew the room’s attention — a bittersweet train station sequence. In it, the lead couple part ways after an emotional exchange, sharing a final smile before boarding separate trains. The scene fused classic Bollywood romance with a restrained, contemporary tone.
Some writers admitted that the AI-generated version carried surprising emotional weight for something written by a machine with no personal experience.
Why It Was Rejected
While technically sound, the scene did not pass. Director [Name] subsequently explained that the AI version failed to capture the cultural nuance and dual emotional beats demanded by the story. The team was also concerned with giving AI the authority to determine such a critical moment lest it strangle the human imagination that was at the core of Bollywood storytelling.
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Later on, the directors decided to use a different ending that kept the emotional impact but stuck to the source of the story.
What This Means for Bollywood and AI
The Saiyaara case highlights the escalating debate in the film industry: while AI can be a productive collaborator, it is not yet expected to replace human writers. The cultural awareness, emotional intelligence, and lived experience that human storytelling relies on cannot be replaced by tools like ChatGPT, even though they can generate quick, polished ideas.
For now, AI for Bollywood will most probably be only a brainstorming tool and not a scriptwriter. However, with advancing technology, film makers will continue to experiment with the balance between human imagination and machine-generated ideas.