What made the filmmaker prompt hero no longer enough as the homepage lead?
How Melies changed, before and after.
Melies moved its homepage from a filmmaker prompt to a studio suite.
"You are a filmmaker" prompt hero "AI Filmmaking, for Everyone" studio suite
melies.co
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Use arrow keys to compare. Home shows before; End shows after.Before & afterDrag to compare
01 / What changed
Melies moved its homepage from a filmmaker prompt to a studio suite.
The homepage hero changed from “You are a filmmaker,” with magenta supporting copy about transforming ideas into Hollywood movies with AI and a central cinematic prompt box (Surprise Me / Short Film / Generate), to “AI Filmmaking, for Everyone,” with suite-style subcopy about stories, images, videos, voices, and music, primary CTAs Start Creating and Explore All AI Tools, and a horizontal gallery of AI outputs. The title tag moved from “Melies • You are a filmmaker” to “Melies - AI Filmmaking Tools.” Navigation framing also shifts toward an AI Creative Suite / AI Agents / Pricing pattern on the later page.
Before"You are a filmmaker" prompt hero
After"AI Filmmaking, for Everyone" studio suite
Before is a February 15, 2026 archive capture. After is the live site observed September 23, 2026. These dates bound the visible website change, not the exact rewrite. March 16, 2026 Wayback id_ HTML matches the live H1 and title framing, but the March toolbar screenshot rendered incompletely, so the after visual uses the live capture. WIP todos “New homepage #melies” and “V2 in prod” bracket early March 2026 as research context only. September 2026 X “rebuilding Melies” and open Redesign WIP todos are a later parallel app rebuild, not this marketing pair.
Name the suite on the marketing surface.
Romain publicly described rebuilding Melies as V2 with a suite of focused AI creative tools. Our reading: the later homepage presents Melies as an all-in-one studio rather than leading with a single filmmaker prompt. The founder has not confirmed why this exact hero was chosen.
BeforeLead with a filmmaker prompt.
The page asks visitors to type a film idea into a cinematic prompt box and generate.
AfterLead with an AI studio suite.
The page promises filmmaking tools for everyone and shows Start Creating, Explore tools, and sample outputs together.
What Romain said publiclyRomain Simon · Founder, Melies
Mar 2026
I rebuilt Melies in less than 15 days and it's way better. Melies V2 is live today with a suite of focused AI creative tools that each work great on their own
Verified from the public LinkedIn activity page on September 23, 2026. It describes a Melies V2 rebuild as a suite of focused tools near the early March ship window. It does not timestamp the homepage rewrite or prove business impact. LinkedIn showed relative “6mo” timing rather than an exact calendar day.
Read the post on LinkedInWhat happened after the change?
THE OPEN QUESTION
Did reframing the homepage around an AI studio suite change who signed up, how they used Melies, or whether they stayed?
We need Romain’s perspective to connect this change to the results.We don’t have the results yet.
What would you ask Romain?
Go deeper into this decision. Ask the maker, or share this page with your audience.
About: What changed
Q&A · THE CONVERSATION
Ask Romain about this change.
The story does not have to end here. What would help you learn from this decision?
Questions for RomainFounder, Melies · No replies here yet
Questions
3Why present Melies as a suite of tools on the marketing page instead of leading with one prompt?
What signal would tell you this homepage rewrite worked?