Filmmakers, animators, AI creators and science-fiction storytellers have an unusually large opportunity to turn three minutes of imagination into a potential feature film. The Future Vision XPRIZE is inviting creators around the world to produce an optimistic science-fiction trailer depicting a technology-enabled future in which humanity does more than survive—it progresses.

The competition carries more than $3.5 million in announced prizes and support, including a grand-prize package valued at $2.6 million: $100,000 in cash for screenplay development and a $2.5 million equity investment toward production of the winning feature film. The competition is presented through XPRIZE with Google and Range, with Salesforce serving as presenting sponsor.

The proposition is deliberately simple:

Show the world a future worth building.

And creators do not need to produce a feature film to enter.

They need to tell that story in three minutes or less.

Hollywood Has Imagined Enough Futures to Fear. XPRIZE Wants Creators to Imagine One Worth Reaching.

Science fiction has an enormous influence on the technologies and societies people eventually attempt to create.

For decades, filmmakers have warned audiences about artificial intelligence, surveillance, environmental collapse, authoritarian governments, robots, genetic engineering and technological inequality.

Those warnings have value.

But the Future Vision XPRIZE begins with a different premise: humanity also needs compelling stories about what happens when difficult technologies and social challenges are successfully navigated.

The competition specifically seeks hopeful, ambitious and technology-forward science fiction—not simplistic utopias where nothing goes wrong.

Characters can face danger.

Societies can experience conflict.

Technologies can create unintended consequences.

Villains can exist.

The difference is that the story ultimately presents humanity as capable of learning, adapting, cooperating and creating something better.

XPRIZE describes the goal as producing stories in which technology contributes meaningfully to humanity's ability to thrive.

The Inspiration Comes From Star Trek

The philosophy behind the competition owes much to the cultural impact of Star Trek.

When the television series appeared in 1966, it did more than introduce futuristic spacecraft and fictional technologies. It depicted humanity as having progressed socially, scientifically and institutionally.

Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of XPRIZE, has repeatedly discussed the impact that vision had on his own life and career.

Rather than asking filmmakers to recreate Star Trek, Future Vision XPRIZE is effectively asking today's storytellers:

What is this generation's vision of a future worth working toward?

That could involve artificial intelligence.

Or robotics.

Space exploration.

Healthcare.

Energy.

Climate restoration.

Biotechnology.

Blockchain.

Food production.

Cities.

Education.

Human-machine collaboration.

Or technologies that have not yet been invented.

The important requirement is that technology has a meaningful relationship with the story rather than functioning merely as visual decoration.

What Creators Have to Submit

The entry requirement is remarkably accessible compared with the size of the prize.

Creators must submit a science-fiction trailer or short film with a maximum running time of three minutes, accompanied by a written treatment of no more than 12 pages. The official rules call for MP4 or MOV video at 1080p or higher.

Creators may use:

• Traditional filmmaking
• Animation
• AI-assisted production
• Visual effects
• Virtual production
• Hybrid techniques combining multiple approaches

XPRIZE explicitly allows creators to choose their production tools.

That opens the competition well beyond established Hollywood studios.

A small creative team with excellent storytelling, strong design and sophisticated AI-production capabilities can potentially compete with traditionally financed filmmakers.

The production budget of the trailer is therefore not necessarily the deciding factor.

The idea matters.

The world matters.

The characters matter.

And whether viewers actually want to spend two hours inside that imagined future matters.

What XPRIZE Is Looking For

According to the competition criteria, strong submissions should combine several elements.

Technology Solving Meaningful Problems

Technology should address recognizable human challenges rather than merely producing futuristic spectacle.

The story might explore climate restoration, health, energy, food, space exploration or another major challenge.

Humanity Thriving

The future should show people progressing—not simply avoiding extinction.

The underlying question is:

What becomes possible when humanity gets something important right?

A Future Worth Building

The world should inspire people.

The strongest entry may cause viewers to think:

Someone should actually build that.

Compelling Storytelling

This remains a film competition.

A catalogue of futuristic inventions is not enough.

Characters need motivations. The story needs stakes. The audience needs an emotional reason to care.

XPRIZE's judging criteria specifically consider concept quality, ambition, mission alignment and whether advanced technology is meaningfully integrated into the narrative.

The Grand Prize: $2.6 Million Toward Making the Feature Film

The largest opportunity is reserved for the overall winner.

The current official rules describe the grand prize as:

$100,000 cash for screenplay development

plus

$2.5 million in equity investment toward production of the feature film.

That produces the advertised $2.6 million grand-prize package.

But the funding may be only part of the value.

The winner also receives production and development support, including involvement from Range, assistance with script development and talent attachment, connections for additional financing, and support associated with Google. The rules state that Range will use best efforts to arrange financing and produce the winning film with a total budget potentially reaching $15 million or more, depending on additional funding.

That transforms the competition from a conventional cash-prize contest into something closer to a feature-film launch platform.

Republic Film Could Add Community Financing

There is another interesting component.

The competition says it intends to launch a public investment campaign through Republic Film for the grand-prize project, with the goal of potentially raising an additional $1 million or more from fans.

That means the eventual film could combine:

Competition funding + professional production financing + community investment.

For science-fiction creators accustomed to spending years trying to move a concept from screenplay to financing, that is a meaningful opportunity.

Any investment offering would, of course, be governed separately by its applicable terms and securities requirements.

Four Runners-Up Receive $100,000 Each

Winning the grand prize is not the only financial opportunity.

The official rules state that four runner-up finalists receive $100,000 each.

Those finalists also receive promotion, industry exposure and access to creative resources associated with the competition.

The competition also states that Top 10 finalists receive $10,000 each, with additional recognition and sponsor-related opportunities appearing across the competition program.

The advertised overall prize ecosystem exceeds $3.5 million.

The Opportunity Is About More Than Money

For an emerging filmmaker, the surrounding opportunities may prove nearly as important as the cash.

The Future Vision XPRIZE says selected creators may gain:

• Exposure through YouTube and competition channels
• Connections with Hollywood producers and financiers
• Access to Google-associated creative resources
• Professional screenplay development
• Production support
• Industry visibility
• Participation in the Moonshot Gathering in Los Angeles
• Potential feature-film financing
• Audience-building before the feature is produced

The competition is therefore attempting to create a pathway from:

Idea → trailer → audience → finalist → screenplay → financing → feature film.

That is far more ambitious than simply awarding the best three-minute video.

Thousands of Creators Could Be Competing for Five Finalist Positions

The official competition workflow currently describes four broad stages.

Create: Develop the three-minute vision.

Submit: Deliver the final competition materials.

Selection: Entries are reviewed and narrowed to finalists.

Finals: Selected creators present their visions in Los Angeles on September 25, 2026.

The competition website says the selection process is expected to narrow a large field to five finalists.

Those finalists then move from merely submitting a film to presenting a potential cinematic franchise.

September 25: The Finalists Go to Los Angeles

Finalists must be able to attend the final event in person on September 25, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles, according to the official rules.

The final presentation occurs in connection with the Moonshot Gathering.

For the eventual winner, that could be the moment a three-minute speculative trailer begins its transition into a professionally financed motion picture.

The Deadline Is August 15, 2026

There is an important deadline clarification for applicants.

One portion of the Future Vision XPRIZE homepage currently displays August 14, while the site's detailed competition timeline, official rules and XPRIZE's own announcement identify the final submission deadline as:

August 15, 2026 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time

Applicants should rely on the official rules and confirm the submission portal before waiting until the final hours.

As of August 7, the submission window is therefore nearly closed.

Why This Competition Could Matter Beyond Film

Future Vision XPRIZE is based on a provocative argument:

Stories can function as prototypes for civilization.

Long before engineers build something, artists frequently imagine it.

Science fiction anticipated or popularized ideas resembling:

• Video calling
• Tablets
• Voice-controlled computers
• Artificial intelligence assistants
• Robots
• Space tourism
• Virtual worlds
• Autonomous systems

Cathie Wood, one of the supporters associated with the initiative, has similarly argued that technologies now receiving enormous investment—AI, robotics, blockchain, multiomics and energy storage—once belonged largely to science fiction.

The competition therefore treats storytelling as more than entertainment.

It treats storytelling as an early stage of innovation.

A powerful fictional concept can inspire scientists.

Scientists inspire entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs build companies.

Companies create industries.

And eventually, something that once appeared on a screen can become part of ordinary life.

XPRIZE Has Used Incentives to Accelerate Innovation Before

XPRIZE is a nonprofit organization known for using large incentive competitions to encourage solutions to difficult global problems.

The organization says it has launched 30 competitions, engaged more than 35,000 innovators across 173 countries, and helped turn approximately $519 million in prize capital into $31 billion in measurable economic and social value.

Future Vision XPRIZE applies the same incentive philosophy to a different kind of challenge.

Instead of asking:

Who can build the technology?

This competition asks:

Who can show humanity why that future is worth building?

That may ultimately be the most interesting part of the opportunity.

Hollywood has produced countless stories explaining what humanity should fear.

Future Vision XPRIZE is funding filmmakers willing to imagine what humanity should pursue.

A three-minute trailer could introduce a new character.

A new technology.

A new civilization.

A completely new cinematic universe.

And one of those three-minute ideas could receive the financing, production support and industry connections required to become a feature film.

For filmmakers who believe science fiction can do more than predict disaster, the challenge is clear:

Imagine the future. Make audiences want to live there. Then show the world how humanity gets there.

Register for Future Vision XPRIZE
Read the official competition rules
Future Vision XPRIZE competition website