For horror fans, Late Night with the Devil marked one of the most anticipated releases of the year. The Found Footage film embraces an analog film filter and takes center stage David Dastmalchian garnered praise for its top-notch production design by leaning on a '70s grindhouse aesthetic reminiscent of Dawn of the dead or Death Race 2000. After a late night talk show host aired a Halloween special in 1977, it had the makings of a cult hit.
But the film may be more remembered for the controversy surrounding its use of cutaway graphics created by generative artificial intelligence tools. One image of a dancing skeleton in particular enraged some theatergoers. Leading up to its theatrical debut in March, the film faced the prospect of a boycott, though that never materialized.
The cinema directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes defended the use of AI and explained that the art had been updated by human hands. In a statement, they said: “We experimented with AI on three still images that we further edited and ultimately appear as very short interstitials in the film.”
Less than a month later, five images supposedly generated by AI teased post-apocalyptic scenes in A24's Civil war sparked similar outrage by some of the fans. There were a few telltale signs that the graphics were AI-generated with blunders in terms of historical accuracy and consistency: the two Chicago Marina Towers buildings in one poster are on opposite sides of the river; another shows the wreckage of a three-door car.
In response, a reader wrote on A24's Instagram post that the comment was on Late at night was “more than enough to make it transparently clear to everyone: WE DO NOT WANT THIS.”
But in the entertainment industry the Pandora's box with AI has probably already been released. Behind closed doors, most corners of production, from writers' rooms to VFX departments, have embraced generative AI tools. For every project that faced a backlash for using AI in part of the production pipeline, there are dozens of others that have quietly adopted the technology.
“There are a lot of people using AI, but they can't admit it publicly because you still need artists to do a lot of work and they will turn on you,” says David Stripinis, a VFX industry veteran who worked on Avatar, Man of Steel and Marvel titles. “Right now it's more of a PR issue than a technical issue.”
“Producers, writers, everyone is using AI, but they are afraid to admit it publicly,” agrees David Defendi, a French screenwriter and founder of Genario, a custom AI software system designed for film and television writers. “But it is used because it is an instrument that provides a benefit. If you don't use it, you are at a disadvantage against those who use AI.”
One of the reasons for the backlash against the use of AI in the US Late at night And Civil war could be the precedent it seems to set. Hiring or employing a concept or graphic artist would have been a negligible cost to the productions involved. If companies are willing to use AI to replace such peripheral tasks – in the case of Late at night And Civil war, jobs that could have been filled by anyone on their production design teams – what positions are next? Writers? VFX artists?
“Most writers who have tried AI have found that it is not a very good writer,” says David Kavanagh, executive officer of the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE), a group of writers' guilds and unions representing more than 8,000 writers in 25 countries. represent. . “So I don't see it replacing us yet, but the impact on other parts of the industry could be very damaging.” He points to sectors such as children's entertainment and soap operas, where there is a lot of “repetition of similar situations by the same group of characters”, as sectors that could be badly affected.
The displacement of labor by lower-level workers in Hollywood likely plays a role in which the use of AI is seen as acceptable and beyond all bounds. Much of the discourse surrounding this issue is filtered through the lens of Hollywood's historic double strikes last year. The use of AI tools in Civil war And Late at night meant that artists missed work.
Some sectors of the industry are already threatened with extinction. “The employment of dubbing and subtitling in Europe is over,” says Kavanagh, pointing to AI technology that can produce lip-synched dubs in multiple languages, even using versions of the original actor's performance. “It's hard to imagine how they will survive this.”
In Cannes Saturday, indie producer/distributor XYZ Films presents a sizzle reel of AI-translated trailers from International films, including Scandinavian science fiction films UFO SwedenFrench comedy thriller Vincent must die and Korean action hit Smugglers, which showcases TrueSync dubbing technology from LA-based company Flawless. Flawless and XYZ are pitching the technology as an opportunity for successful international films to cheaply produce a high-quality English-language dub that will make them more attractive to the global market. Flawless, XYZ Films and Tea Shop Productions plan to roll out UFO Sweden worldwide in what they call the first large-scale theatrical release of a fully translated film using AI.
In the meantime, Putina new political biopic from Polish director Besaleel, to be sold to international buyers at Cannes, uses AI technology to recreate Vladimir Putin's face over the body of an actor with a similar build to the Russian leader. Besaleel says he plans to use the same technology, developed in-house by his post-production company AIO, to create deepfake actors who can play extras and supporting roles.
“I foresee that film and TV productions will eventually only have leading and perhaps supporting actors, while the entire world of background and supporting characters will be created digitally,” he says.
In Hollywood, the specter of AI casts a terrifying shadow. A survey of 300 entertainment industry leaders published in January found that three-quarters of respondents said AI tools supported the elimination, reduction or consolidation of jobs at their companies. It is estimated that nearly 204,000 positions will be negatively impacted over the next three years. Concept artists, sound engineers and voice actors are at the forefront of this shift. Visual effects and other post-production work were also cited as particularly vulnerable.
There is also an imbalance in resistance to the use of AI Civil war And Late at night but not, for example, Robert Zemeckis' upcoming Miramax film Herewhich will have one the aging Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Their transformations were achieved using a new generative AI-driven tool called Metaphysics Live.
Leveraging AI to allow actors to play younger or older versions of themselves could anchor A-list talent as they are now suddenly considered for roles of all ages. Such as graphic artists who could have lost work Late at night, a young Tom Hanks look-alike could have similarly missed out on an opportunity to be cast in a major studio film. Why hire Sophie Nélisse to play a younger version of Melanie Lynskey's Shauna? Yellow jackets when the production can simply age the established star?
But where many see a threat, some see an opportunity. “We see AI as a tool that we believe will unlock creativity and opportunity, that will create jobs, not eliminate them,” says Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkinspoken The Hollywood Reporter in Cannes, as long as there are guardrails in place and copyright is protected.
Rivkin, the former CEO of The Jim Henson Co., notes that the late, great Muppets creator was always at the forefront of technology. “If Jim were alive today,” says Rivkin, “he would use AI to do great things, and use it to enhance his storytelling.”