Today, movies play out the same for all pairs of eyes. In not too distant future, this will change. As everything else is becoming personalised, movies will become personalised for specific pair of eyes that is watching it. I’ve dreamt of a couple of use cases where that would make sense.

First up, product placement. Just like Google AdWords chooses what ads to show you, so will the product and brand placement in the movies be customised to your marketing profile. The easiest thing to tweak will be the billboards and logos, radio talk or a TV programme in the background. Sophisticated interventions, like dropping names in dialogue or substituting minor plot devices, will follow.

Say you’re looking to buy a car. If you’re likely to go for a sports car, the protagonist of the movie you’re watching will enjoy herself in the sports car of the sponsor company. However, if you’re in market for a small city car, she will look all sexy in this model of a car from the same company. In both cases, the car will be just a way for her to advance the plot from A to B.

Then, pacing. More in-depth dialogue for some viewers, longer car-chasing scenes for others. Artificial Intelligence editor makes the cut specifically for your taste.

Pacing will be based not only on your profile (e.g. what movies do you usually watch), but on your current watching experience. Subtle expressions of boredom or excitement, recorded by a face-tracking camera in the room, will be a good guide on when to pick up the pace and when to prolong the enjoyment.

Alternate endings will be chosen on the personal level, too. Machine-learning algorithm will choose the story ending most likely to leave you satisfied, praising the movie to your friends. This choice will be made based on your unconscious input, and on data gathered from the thousands that watched various endings before you.

Photography can also be tweaked to the viewer. Think Instagram filters for whole movie scenes. Maybe some people respond better to dark earthy tones for the sad emotional scenes, while others need better contrast and more light to enjoy the movie. Some people just love big red sunsets while others can’t stand them. No need to push any person’s preferences to another.

Sensitivity personalisation is also a great use case. AI would seamlessly take out curse words for underage viewers. Skip the lewd remarks. Sensitive audiences can be spared of scenes depicting sex or violence, scenes of horror or existential dread. It can watch out not to offend the viewer’s religious views or cultural norms.

Political controversy? Better not risk it for some people, but bring it on for others. Censor out an anti-Trump side joke for some, and a pro-Trump graffiti in the background for others; skip the political overtones for the rest. A well-placed detail like that could mean a world of difference for viewer engagement, without them even noticing why.

Movie AI could even tweak the appearance of actors to make them more appealing, more attractive for you specifically. Movies are filmed to make them better-looking than in real life, but personalisation will take this to a whole new level. Of course, movie stars have been known to charm the moviegoers, but until now they were little more a pretty face on a poster, dolls behind a one-way mirror, performing for the faceless masses.

Movies of tomorrow will watch you more than you watch them.

Now the actors can come alive for us, react to our wants and needs by picking up on our subtle clues. Maybe more screen time for specific actor? Slightly huskier voice of the female lead? Bluer eyes, darker skin, more curves, more laughter? Repeated version of that smile that provoked a reaction? These interventions will be small. Your consciousness will barely notice a difference. But this small difference will matter.

Watching a movie will become a date, a hypnotising seduction. Like the weatherman Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, they will know more about you than you would expect from any human, and through repeated interactions with all the other viewers they will learn a great deal about what makes humans like you tick. They could make the audience literally fall in love with the actors — and, by extension, with the movie.