Cinematic Business

From the Devs

Cinematic Business is a deep film-industry management simulator. You run a production studio as both producer and CEO — every screenplay, every casting decision, every release date is yours to make. There are no shortcuts and no "right" answer: you read the talent, you read the market, and you live with the result on opening weekend.

The simulation tracks each creator as a person with a career, not a stat block. Writers grow stronger after every project. Directors form opinions about you. Actors collect filmographies the press will remember. Rival studios run their own pipelines on the same rules you do, with their own strategic profiles, budgets, and ambitions. The industry keeps moving whether you ship a film this year or not.

Develop the Screenplay

You're the producer — you don't write the script, you commission it. Brief your writers on genre, setting, period, themes, tone balance and role structure, then pick one or two screenwriters from your own studio or the open market. Their talent, speed, reliability and genre fit shape what the script becomes.

As the draft develops, watch it take shape across every quality dimension — its core idea, structure, characters, style, logic, worldbuilding and tone control. Not happy with where it's heading? Order corrections, swap the writing team mid-project, or shelve the draft and start over.

You commission the script and watch it take shape across every quality dimension — from core idea to tone control.

Assemble the Crew

Run a director kickoff to lock the creative brief, then attach a director by direct pick, shortlist, or open search. Negotiate creative freedom, scenario rights, casting influence, and pace. Cast leads, supporting roles, and minor parts through shortlists, open casting, or director-led picks. Assign a camera operator and lock down shooting locations and stages before the preparation deadline runs out.

You negotiate creative freedom, scenario rights and pace with your director — a creator isn't a stat block you buy off a shelf.

Run the Production

Preproduction, shooting, and postproduction each carry their own decisions, costs, and risks. You set the pace and tone of the shoot, then plan the postproduction: picture editing, sound, music, VFX, and animation — choosing between in-house capacity, outsourced postproduction houses, or premium music options from library tracks to original scores to star composers. Every choice feeds into a ten-category quality score that decides how the film actually plays.

Your production command center: every stage, the budget, and each decision in one place.

Compete in a Living Industry

AI studios run the full pipeline alongside you, driven by procedural strategic profiles: commercial focus, expansion aggressiveness, producer control, long-term strategy, market reactivity, and financial status. They greenlight projects, hire crews, and release films in the same world you operate in. The press covers everything — start announcements, reviews, director picks, breakout hits, year-end top lists. Festivals run on a real calendar with nominations, juries, and prestige weights.

Release and Results

Sign distribution contracts, build marketing campaigns with hype tracking across stages, and pick a release date that gives postproduction and marketing room to land. Premiere day converts the entire production chain into reviews, audience numbers, and box office — weekly, by year, and all-time. Strong films collect festival nominations and awards that follow the creators who made them.

Build Your Studio

Expand stages, postproduction rooms, casting offices, and development capacity. Hire permanent writers and production managers, build production teams, and grow your reputation across regions. Decisions you make in year one shape the talent willing to work with you in year ten.

Features

• Full film pipeline from screenplay brief to box office and festival results

• Deep creator simulation — writers, directors, actors, operators, and production managers with statistics, careers, and project histories

• SI rival studios with distinct strategic profiles

• Press ecosystem with reviews, news coverage, and year-end coverage

• Festival calendar with nominations, awards, and prestige rules

• Box office tracking — weekly, yearly, all-time, by region

• Modular creator sets — the game ships with a default set, with more sets and community-friendly JSON authoring planned

• Difficulty modes and three career starting points: Startup, Professional, Hollywood

Early Access

Cinematic Business is launching in Early Access. The full pipeline — from screenplay to release, including AI competitors, press, and festivals — is playable today. Early Access is where we tune balance, expand creator content, add scenarios, and shape the simulation around player feedback. Details about our plans and the current state of the game will be published regularly on Steam. We encourage you to add this project to your wishlist so you can follow our progress.