Hollywood is deathly afraid of A.I., and it makes perfect sense.
Sick of actors unloading their political hot takes on the public (and pushing away potential movie goers)? A.I. "actress" Tilly Norwood would do no such thing. Nor would she insult half her audience or mock the source material of her latest film in the not-so-grand Rachel Zegler tradition.
Why pay a team of mediocre screenwriters when an A.I. bot can crank out a mediocre script at a fraction of the price?
Need a range of voice actors for your next animated film, but your budget won't allow for any A-list contributors? A.I. can whip up almost any sound or voice.
The fear is real and understandable, especially for artists already struggling to find steady work.
There's another side to the A.I. equation for La La Land. Imagine the costs it can save in an industry that's often hemorhagging money. Why blow a film or TV show's budget on elaborate CGI effects or post-production work when a supersized Grok-like app can recreate the look for far less?
It's up to the industry's biggest names to hold the line and keep the A.I. wave at bay, at least on the creative front. Tell that to Steven Soderberg. The Oscar winner has announced that his next project, a documentary called "John Lennon: The Last Interview," will unabashedly embrace A.I. technology.
Soderbergh expounded on the subject in a new Variety interview. No apologies or, at least for now, regrets.
I’m just not threatened by it. I’m only scared of things I don’t understand. So I felt obligated to engage with it, to figure out what it is and what it can do. It turned out to be a very good tool for certain passages of the Lennon documentary where I needed surrealistic imagery that was impossible to shoot. It allowed me to solve a creative problem about how to visualize what John and Yoko are speaking about philosophically … You show me a new tool. I want to get my hands on it and see what’s going on.
And he's not the only one. Oscar-winner Ben Affleck recently sold his A.I. company InterPositive to Netflix. Wait ... did anyone know the erstwhile Batman had such a company?
Either way, the company helps with the post-production process, not tinkering with existing scripts or creating digital actors out of ones and zeroes.
Still, that's little comfort to the experts whose post-production work will be limited, or replaced, by A.I. innovations.
The stark reality is that Hollywood is now competing with YouTube and TikTok content creators who work on microscopic budgets and often hold sway over the public. Comedian Tim Dillon's YouTube podcast draws thousands of views, while late-night TV shows spend millions of writing staffs, production costs and related expenses.
"The Late Show" hits the bricks next month, in part, because it lost CBS $40 million a year, according to published reports.
See where this is going?
Soderbergh and Affleck may be outliers for now, but Hollywood's survival may come down to cutting costs at all costs. And A.I. could be the path forward, as painful as it may be to admit it.
