Plenty of filmmakers are terrified about the impact artificial intelligence will have on the movie and TV industry, but don’t count Zack Snyder among them.
In talking with Joe Rogan this week, he said if a computer or algorithm could make a hit, he and everyone else would’ve already been out of a job.
“I’m not that worried about the AI influence over motion picture,” Snyder said on “The Joe Rogan Podcast.” “There’s obviously no formula. No one can predict what’s gonna be successful or they would have gotten rid of the directors and writers a long time ago… Still, there’s alchemy. There’s still magic.”
So you’re not a little worried, Zack? Have you seen what OpenAI’s Sora can do? Or are you at least curious to play around with it?
Granted, AI has not been great at making the types of bloody, hard-R spectacles that Snyder specializes in. AI models rightfully want to shy away from depictions of violence or sex or nudity that could cause harm, so filmmakers who want to tell such stories have been hamstrung. Snyder probably won’t be using AI to help him make a “300” series even more homoerotic than the film.
But Snyder echoed the feeling of other filmmakers who argued that the qualities that make a movie special are the personal touches of a director with a vision, rather than something that’s just been completely generated by a computer.
“I do feel like the fingerprints — the squishy fingerprints on the thing are the thing that make it, like, unbelievably cool,” Snyder said. “The best movies, my favorite movies, the best movies are where you can feel the hand of the filmmaker.”
We would not be surprised, though, if Snyder one day found himself dabbling with AI. Even Christopher Nolan took some time out recently to declare Snyder’s “Watchmen” as ahead of its time, a film Nolan said would’ve been considered a classic if it came out in a post-“Avengers” world. And he’s got an army of loyal fans that will follow him through whatever director’s cut he dreams up for his next project.
Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver,” his follow-up last December’s “Part One,” premieres on Netflix April 19. Though the first film was critically maligned and did not seem to capture the public attention in the way some of his other films have, the director also said on Rogan’s podcast that his back-of-the-napkin math suggests “Rebel Moon” may have been seen by more people on Netflix than “Barbie” in a theater.
