• Donna Langley, chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment & Studios, says the movie business has stabilized into a post-pandemic pattern that provides some certainty, while the future of traditional television remains "murky."
• Consuming are devouring an "extraordinary amount of content," she said at the CNBC Changemakers event in Los Angeles on Tuesday, but linear TV is declining quickly and "there is going to be loads of consolidation."

Few people have as well-informed a perspective on the future of Hollywood as Donna Langley, chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment & Studios.

The only woman to lead a legacy Hollywood film studio, last November she was named to the chairman position as part of the broader corporate reorganization that will see many of parent company Comcast's cable TV assets spun off, giving her additional "greenlight" powers across Peacock, Bravo, and NBC programming, from primetime to late night. 

Langley is in a good position to opine on the rapidly changing entertainment industry, and how things are shaking out between movies and TV. Which has the more stable picture at the moment? Spoiler alert: in Langley's view, it's the big screen.

The box office totals may be down 20% compared to 2019 in the post-Covid era, but Langley says it has stabilized.

"Film, ironically, is I think like an ocean liner, relatively stable," Langley said at the CNBC Changemakers event in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Langley was named to the 2025 CNBC Changemakers list earlier this year.

"One engine might be sputtering, but you kind of know where it's going," she said. "We have a pretty good handle post-pandemic what the audience wants."

Among those wants: IMAX and large format. "They will spend the money on that," Langley said.

Leading a studio responsible for producing and distributing more than 100 films and television series each year, Langley has had some big successes, with the last two years being two of the most profitable years in the studio's 112-year history, thanks to 2023 films like "Oppenheimer," "Fast X," and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie." That was followed up by another successful year in 2024, with hits like "Despicable Me 4," "Twisters," and "Wicked," which became the top-grossing Broadway musical adaptation of all time.

It also helps, she said, to "play a bit of a portfolio model, so you're not stuck in any one thing."

Animation is still "working," Langley said, while horror is more cyclical and "cycles quickly."

Television, on the other hand, remains more uncertain. It's not that people aren't viewing "TV."

"Consumption is where it needs to be people," Langley said. "People are consuming an extraordinary amount of content," she added.

Universal Studio Group has had several broadcast and streaming hits, including "Never Have I Ever," "Hacks," and "Bel-Air."

It also recently signed a long-term deal with Darren Star, who has succeeded across multiple decades as the creator of "Emily in Paris", "Sex and the City", "Beverly Hills, 90210", and "Melrose Place."

At least one issue that has gripped Hollywood, Langley says, has been blown out of proportion, at least for the immediate future, and that is AI.

"AI is just another tech. It may be exponentially more powerful and move much more quickly and ultimately have more of an impact, but you deal with the problem in front of you that you can deal with," she said.

AI will offer efficiencies and a better set of processes, but Langley said the world of entertainment needs to be kept "human-centric and powered by humans."

While AI was an important issue in the recent Hollywood labor strike negotiations and ultimate agreements, Langley said the panic over AI, "as we sit here today, is a bit premature, like virtual reality."

"These things tend to move a little more incrementally than we expect and drive disruption but it happens over time. ... welcome it in, and be circumspect about it, and use it where we can to get our feet wet with it, but don't panic," she added.

The big issue is the by-now obvious one of linear television declining quickly, and cord-cutting accelerating rather than leveling off, and companies like NBC needing a network to be healthy, Langley said, in part because of sports rights, which ultimately flow into the streaming entity, Peacock in NBCUniversal's case.

"It's a tough murky moment. Still mid flow," she said of the changes.

Langley has been through moments of uncertainty in recent history, most notably Covid, when productions like "Jurassic World: Dominion" had tens of millions of dollars a week in production costs on the line amid a global shutdown.

"You put on your seat belt," Langley said. "It could be easier to bury your head in the sand but you can't do that. You have to stare at it, stare at the problem. ... get tactical around problems that are finite and step-by-step work your way through what could seem insurmountable."

The planned spinoff of Comcast's cable networks later this year will give Langley and her team what she called a "manageable kind of set of challenges."

One thing she is sure of: "There is going to be loads of consolidation."

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.