The Future of the Movie Experience: How Nexus Studios & Meta Built Something Completely New

What happens when cinema breaks free from the screen? In this episode, we sit down with Mike Anderson, award-winning director and creative at Nexus Studios, to explore one of the most fascinating shifts in modern storytelling: spatial cinema.

Mike and his team partnered with Meta and Universal Pictures to bring Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema horror films — The Black Phone and M3GAN — into an entirely new immersive format built for the Meta Quest headset. But this isn't VR gaming. It's a new medium for film.

Together, Steve and Mike unpack the history of technological inflexion points in filmmaking from the Edison kinetoscope to Dolby surround sound and why we may be at the most significant one yet. They discuss what "spatial" actually means for a viewer, how Nexus built a "visual sound design" layer on top of existing films, and what it's like to watch a horror movie inside a basement that maps to your actual room.

From the future of movie theatres and back-catalogue IP, to the possibility of non-linear storytelling and filmmaking made from scratch for spatial platforms, this conversation is a deep dive into where cinema is heading and why the audience might be more ready than we think.

If you're curious about immersive experiences, the future of entertainment, XR technology, experience design, or the intersection of AI and storytelling, this episode is essential listening.

00:00 Introduction and pivotal moment in filmmaking.

01:00 A brief history of cinema tech - From kinetoscopes to iPhones — how technology has always driven storytelling.

03:52 What is spatial cinema? - Mike defines spatial viewing and explains the jaw-dropping scale of an in-headset screen.

07:00 Your room becomes the film - How the Quest maps your space and overlays the world of the movie into it.

08:30 Beyond film — where else does this go? - Sports broadcasting, live events, education — the boundless applications of spatial tech.

12:00 The pitch — getting it signed off - The creative and technical complexity of convincing Meta and Universal to back this.

15:30 Inventing a new language - Creating definitions, testing what works, and discovering "visual sound design."

20:00 The viewer experience - What it actually feels and looks like to watch a film in spatial, inside the app.

21:30 The Black Phone & M3GAN - Why horror was the genre of choice and how two very different films were transformed.

24:45 Scaling the format - The tools Nexus built to productise the 2D-to-spatial conversion pipeline.

27:30 What does this mean for movie theatres? - Complementary, not competitive — why cinema isn't going anywhere.

29:10 New films, new possibilities - What happens when a filmmaker builds from scratch for spatial — and how distribution could work.

35:00 Parallel worlds — immersive art & experience design - Frameless, Marshmallow Laser Feast, how tech is opening new creative windows.

37:00 Mike's journey and what drives him - From painting at RISD to installations in Manhattan to the frontier of spatial filmmaking.

41:30 The "Jazz Singer" moment - What the tipping point looks like — and why we're just waiting for it to arrive.

Nexus Studios | The Experience Designers Podcast | Mike Anderson Bio

Mike Anderson, Director, Nexus Studios

Mike Anderson is an award-winning director and animator who brings a mastery of technology and craft to create work often with a subtly absurd or unsettling edge. As a versatile storyteller, he moves effortlessly between aesthetics and techniques, from original
series like Good Morning, Pickles! (FXX) and Hot Future (Adult Swim) to music videos for Steve Aoki and Ashnikko, seamlessly blending digital gaming visuals, motion capture, or traditional animation.

Mike served as Creative Lead for Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema, guiding the project to create a deeply immersive and engaging experience for audiences. A director in his own right, he applied his narrative insight to interpret and amplify the original director’s intent. Having led creative work for top brands including Apple, Meta, and major IP from Amazon Prime, NBCUniversal, and the NBA, he brings a sharp understanding of storytelling across formats. An avid Quest cinema viewer, he has long envisioned ways to spatialize film, ensuring the experience fully leverages the medium’s emotional and narrative potential.

@nexusstories
@mikeanderson0101
https://nexusstudios.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeanderson0101/