We have entered an age where tech companies are trying to force artificial intelligence into every aspect of our lives. Schoolkids use ChatGPT to write their assignments. People consult AI for medical advice and dieting tips. AI is used in advertising, audiobooks, and podcasting. Police drones driven by AI will soon be flying in our skies. And at the movies, more and more films are using AI in their production and editing.
Many of these films do not use AI as a generative tool — AI has been part of the CGI workflow for decades, with artists using it to de-age actors and clean up faces. I want to draw a distinction between using AI as a tool in the VFX workflow (or even in pre-production stages to augment concept art) and the use of generative AI in a finished product. Generative AI means replacing artists with a machine, cutting corners and labor costs by asking artificial intelligence to animate sequences, design visual effects, replace backgrounds, and, in some cases, replace an actor altogether.
What Films Are Using Generative AI?
This year alone, hundreds of major releases have used generative AI in some capacity. Netflix has been using the technology to create images and clips for its documentaries since 2024, and the company revealed in a July earnings call that around 300 projects in 2026 alone have used the technology, though it did not disclose which ones.
Other cases are more obvious: Young Washington used AI to create CG environments and explosions, including cannonfire and water effects. Steven Soderbergh’s documentary John Lennon: The Last Interview uses AI to create what Variety describes as “fantasy images” of the musician. The upcoming film As Deep as the Grave is itself digging into Val Kilmer’s grave, using AI to synthesize the dead actor’s voice and face onto a character. Doug Liman’s upcoming film Bitcoin will be pushing the technology to its limits, using AI to create environments and lighting effects around real human actors. It will probably look like shit.
Director Adam Shankman used AI to create CG backgrounds in the RuPaul vehicle Stop! That! Train!, though he only fessed up once someone called him out. The Eli Roth film Ice Cream Man uses generative AI to create animated sequences — again, information that the director only provided when asked by a journalist. This trend is particularly troubling — clearly, most filmmakers understand that AI in art has yet to be embraced by the industry and the public, and so they’re cagey about their use of the tool, only revealing it when asked directly.
Some movies now are made entirely with generative AI. Darren Aronofsky’s TIME magazine series On This Day … 1776 envisions the American revolution entirely using AI. In July, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that AI company Fountain 0 will be releasing Dream of Violets, a film about the Iranian revolution, and Odysseus: The Fall, a 135-minute adaptation of The Odyssey. “As with Dreams of Violets, actors, sets and cameras in Odysseus: The Fall were entirely replaced by AI models in its production,” the publication reported. Dream of Violets played at the Tribeca Film Festival. Both will release later this year — and critics should not give any of these projects the dignity of a review, even a negative one.
What Can Film Critics Do About It?
Film and TV critics need to draw a line in the sand when it comes to reviewing projects made with generative AI. Don’t pay for them, don’t review them, and if you’re an editor, don’t solicit reviews of them.
If we treat films made with AI the same as those without, we normalize the use of generative AI in filmmaking and endorse these anti-labor cost-cutting measures. Today, a few animators weren’t employed for Eli Roth’s new film, and a couple dozen VFX artists lost out on working on Young Washington. Tomorrow, these troubling one-off instances of AI usage could become industry standard. Imagine Disney cranking out Frozen sequels every single year using generative AI for half of the animation, or future Star Wars films starring AI versions of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford, de-aged and voiced by robots.
In case you were considering writing an epic 3,000-word takedown of the AI Odyssey adaptation, save your energy. As any journalist knows, all coverage is good coverage. Whether you write a positive review or a negative one, the problem comes with acknowledging Odysseus: The Fall as legitimate and giving it the same treatment as Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Journalists do not have the privilege of dragging their feet when it comes to AI. Hundreds of journalists around the world have already lost their jobs because their parent companies have been all too eager to transition to artificial intelligence. And yes, many of those companies are beginning to hire back employees because the technology, it turns out, isn’t there yet to warrant mass layoffs. But without proper legislation, AI models will only become more sophisticated. Jobs given back today will inevitably be taken away again tomorrow.
If you’re a journalist and don’t believe that Versant or Condé Nast would send you to the breadline the second AI becomes consistent and viable, you’re kidding yourself. These are businesses first and foremost. And while the promise of companies like Anthropic and OpenAI has been that the technology would replace blue-collar jobs and allow people more free time to focus on the arts, this was clearly bullshit from the jump. The technology was almost immediately used to begin replacing professional artistic classes such as animators, illustrators, digital artists, writers, and actors.
History is littered with examples of wealthy bosses proving that they can and will embrace machines over people. It wasn’t that long ago in the U.K. that 6,000 newspaper staff protested Rupert Murdoch’s cutthroat move to shortchange print union workers by replacing them with electricians and switching to new computer systems. Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher battled the union workers with hundreds of police. Protesters were beaten and charged by police horses. The strike failed, the old method of printing was left by the wayside, the U.K. continued to strip unions of their bargaining power, and Murdoch became a billionaire.
All of this does not even touch on the environmental consequences of artificial intelligence, which relies on massive data centers. These data centers, estimates the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, consume as much as 5 million gallons of freshwater a day, the equivalent of a city of 50,000 people. They also can draw as much power a day as 100,000 homes.
Conclusion
Our failure as culture critics to stand up against the use of AI will only lead to one thing: our replacement. How many people do you think currently use ChatGPT or Google Gemini to get movie recommendations? How many newspaper publishers do you think would hesitate to lay off their film critics if they could instead switch to an AI model that doesn’t need deadlines or a salary? Championing the use of AI not only normalizes its usage, but it also devalues the skilled work that real human beings put into the shows and films we consume.
So again: Don’t pay for films or TV shows that use generative AI. Don’t review them. And if you’re an editor, don’t solicit or publish reviews of these projects.
If we don’t take a stand now, simply by boycotting films made using generative AI, it could lead to the extinguishment of our entire profession.
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