Jonathan Mendelsohn
Marvel director Joe Russo has made some eerie comments regarding the future of the film industry at Collider’s panel discussion with Epic Games CCO Donald Mustard. Russo, who is one-half of the filmmaking duo known as the Russo Brothers, has co-directed some of the most popular films in the MCU, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame.
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Joe Russo, who seems to be positive about the idea of AI-generated films, believes that technology is available that could cause filmmakers and actors to become obsolete in the film industry, and that this will most likely start happening in just “two years.” Although, this would enable any ordinary person to create any story they want to see. While some shorts exist that are fully AI-generated, there hasn’t been a completely AI-generated feature film just yet.
Russo said, “The value of it is the democratization of storytelling. That’s incredibly valuable. That means that anyone in this room could tell a story, or make a game at scale, with the help of a photoreal engine or an engine and A.I. tools. That, I think, is what excites me about it most.”
The Pros and Cons of AI-Generated Films
Russo continued on the futuristic matter, saying, “We’re in a world where the entire generation has a facile expertise in it, and is also not afraid of it. So potentially, what you could do with it is obviously use it to engineer storytelling and change storytelling. So you have a constantly evolving story, either in a game or in a movie, or a TV show. You could walk into your house and save the A.I. on your streaming platform. ‘Hey, I want a movie starring my photoreal avatar and Marilyn Monroe’s photoreal avatar. I want it to be a rom-com because I’ve had a rough day,’ and it renders a very competent story with dialogue that mimics your voice. It mimics your voice, and suddenly now you have a rom-com starring you that’s 90 minutes long. So you can curate your story specifically to you.”
Russo explained that this major change in the film industry will depend on Gen-Z’s view on film, adding, “It will have to do with Gen Z, when they become the primary economic drivers of culture. You’ll start to see very radical shifts. They don’t have a movie star system, they don’t care, right? I can sit with my kids and say, ‘Brad Pitt is in X,’ and they’ll go, ‘Who?’ There’s a different assignment of value to how they spend their time, and to who tells them stories.”
