Reconfiguring Screenplay Authorship in the Age of AI Agents: Co-Creation and Industrial Implications

This study examines how the rise of AI agents, exemplified by large language models such as GPT, is transforming screenplay authorship and creative labor in the film industry. Drawing on theories of authorship (Barthes, Foucault) and recent institutional developments, including the Writers Guild of America’s 2023 Minimum Basic Agreement on generative AI, the paper analyzes AI’s role as a participatory agent in co-creative writing processes. Through case studies and industry practices, it explores how AI shifts the screenwriter’s role from solitary storyteller to narrative designer and curator, altering the distribution of labor, authorship attribution, and industrial workflows. The findings indicate that AI agents neither fully replace nor merely assist human authors but reconfigure authorship into a distributed process involving human judgment, algorithmic generation, and platform mediation. This redefinition calls for updated industrial standards, legal frameworks, and ethical guidelines that address co-authorship, creative agency, and the valuation of AI contributions. The paper concludes by highlighting the necessity of interdisciplinary approaches to understand and govern AI–human collaboration in screenwriting.