Picture a dimly-lit boardroom, the types that are tropes in films, except this actually belongs to the same film executives who turn them into cliches. They're huddled over a mysterious new tool that's revolutionising filmmaking. They whisper in awe, but when the TV cameras roll, they swear they don't know what it is, that they don't use it, and that their hands are as clean as a newborn baby's. This forbidden tech—no surprises there—is AI. And guess what? Everyone's using it in Hollywood. Their cousins in India—Bolly, Molly, Tolly—many are, while others are trying to. But shhh—you didn't hear it from me.
The AI in the Elephant Room: Filmmaking's relationship with AI is like a teenager's first crush—obsessive, awkward, and obvious to everyone except themselves. As a Hollywood Reporter article exposed last year (Hollywood at a Crossroads: Everyone Is Using AI, But They Are Scared to Admit It), studios are knee-deep in AI experiments, but they'd sooner admit to stealing office supplies than confess to it. Why the secrecy? Well, filmmakers are master contortionists; we bend reality to fit our narratives while making it sound like the truth. So, the illusion must be preserved.
But seriously, why do they behave like this? The fault is not in our stars—not entirely at least, but the audience. Take my example. I recently wrote in this very column about the famous Ghiblification trend sweeping the planet as being good for the studio: even those who had never heard of Miyazaki will now check his films out. The backlash was ferocious. If you had seen people's comments on it, you'd think I had suggested a genocide of puppies. Folks who happily use their phone AI to take better selfies suddenly morphed into purists, hurling insults like "cinema traitor" and, my personal favourite, "Go kill yourself." Ah, hypocrisy—the unofficial mascot of the digital age.
Blue Eyes and Zombie Stars - AI's Hits and Misses: When it comes to being cursed about my opinion on AI, I was in illustrious company. A good number of recent films have dipped their toes into AI waters, only to face a tsunami of backlash. Take The Brutalist, a film that used AI voice cloning to make Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones sound flawlessly Hungarian. Cue the outrage: Is AI stealing actors' souls?! Meanwhile, Emilia Pérez got roasted when rumours swirled that AI jazzed up its star's singing voice. Never mind that auto-tune has been tweaking songs for decades—AI is the new Terminator, out for the soul of cinema.
Then there's the Fantastic Four reboot poster, which has been accused of being AI-generated. Civil War and Late Night with the Devil faced similar criticism, proving that social media addicts now play a ruthless game of "Spot the Algorithm" instead of enjoying the movie.
But let's not forget AI's wins. In Dune: Part Two, India's own VFX company DNEG (ex-Prime Focus) used AI to trim hours off the CGI team's workload by auto-painting the actors' eyes blue. And cue the confetti: DNEG won its eighth Oscar for it. Furiosa resurrected the late Richard Carter with eerie precision, while Alien: Romulus gave Ian Holm a digital encore. The crown jewel? Here, a film that used AI to de-age Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in real time during filming. Imagine Hanks looks flipping from Big to A Man Called Otto with a click. Magic? Nope—just math. And backpropagation (the most important word in AI you haven't heard of).
The unreal in an industry built on green screens: Here's the irony: filmmakers have always cheated reality. From matte paintings in Gone with the Wind to the CGI wizardry of Avatar, cinema's soul lies in trickery. One definition of art is using lies to tell the truth. Yet AI's critics act like it's the first time someone's Photoshopped a sunset into a scene. Remember the mid-2000s uproar over digital cameras "killing film's authenticity"? Fast-forward 20 years, and every film made today is basically a PR presentation about pixels; yes, even those by Christopher Nolan—shot on film stocks but edited, enhanced and exhibited digitally.
Yet, what does the Motion Picture Academy do? It is considering forcing films to disclose AI use starting next year. Seriously? Imagine slapping a warning on Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: "Caution: This film contained 1000 digital effects shots (but don't worry, Tom Cruise really did ride a motorcycle off a mountain)." Absurd? Exactly. In two to five years, AI will be as standard as CGI today. Mandating disclosures would be like counting how many times director Christopher McQuarrie gasped during Cruise's multiple takes riding off the mountain—pointless and slightly unhinged.
The ethical quagmire - When AI crosses the (script) lines: Of course, not all AI uses are created equal. The WGA and later SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023 weren't just about overpriced artisanal snacks—they were about protecting screenwriters against producers using AI to generate plots, and actors from becoming digital puppets. Imagine your face being cloned for the ad of a political party you don't support without your consent. Creepy, right? Then there's the nightmare of studios feeding Friends scripts into a bot to spit out "new" episodes.
Deepfakes add another layer of ick. While Disney's The Mandalorian used AI to de-age Mark Hamill, the same tech can resurrect politicians or warp reality. Remember the AI-generated track Heart on My Sleeve "imitating" Drake and The Weeknd? It took seconds to make—and lawsuits to dismantle. The lesson: AI is a tool, not a toy. Use it to smooth edges, not erase artists.
My AI misadventures: Curious about AI's creative chops, and as someone who reports on AI, I have fed my script ideas into AI just to check out what it can do. The result? A soup of "twists" so predictable, I'd have broken my nose facepalming. AI's "writing" sounds intelligent, but is so riddled with cliches that it seems like a body shot by gangsters, and it is often incoherent to human sensibilities. Sure, it can describe a sunset poetically, but emotional depth? Nuance? Originality? Nope, you won't find them in AI's binary bloodstream.
Embracing AI without losing the plot: So, where's the balance? Let's take a look at cinema history. When sound replaced silent films, purists wailed—until first The Jazz Singer and every other film since blew their minds. When CGI dinosaurs stomped into Jurassic Park in 1993, sceptics gasped—then bought tickets for its sequel without complaint four years later. AI is no different. Ban it from cloning actors without consent, but welcome it for de-ageing, stop it from plagiarising scripts, but let us screenwriters use it as a research tool; in short, welcome AI as a paintbrush, not the painter.
So, what's the future of AI in filmmaking? It's already happening. OpenAI recently hosted an AI film festival, and Hollywood directors and actors—not just producers—are investing in AI tools for filmmakers. We're walking into a world where AI will do a lot, from tweaking light and sound to resurrecting legends with consent. Will that stop the screams to stop the steal? Unlikely. Yet, filmmakers won't stop trying to make the audience believe that whether the trick's done with mirrors, math, or a little bit of both, it is, after all, art.
So next time you spot a suspiciously perfect sunset or a de-aged star, wink at the screen. Cinema's cat is out of the bag—but the show must go on.
