Wim Wenders has had a very good year, earning strong reviews out of Cannes for “Perfect Days” before the film was selected as Japan’s official Oscar submission. But despite his recent success, the “Paris, Texas” and “Wings of Desire” director is deeply concerned about cinema’s future.
In a press conference at the Lumiere Film Festival (via Variety), Wenders expressed his support for the recently concluded Writers Guild of America strike and the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. He explained that artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to art that can only be avoided by keeping humans involved in the creative process.
“Actors and screenwriters are afraid of becoming obsolete,” Wenders said. “With AI everything gets done very fast. You give three ideas and a few ideas and the next day you have a new script that many studio executives will want to use because that’s what they wanted. For screenwriters it would be the end.”
Wenders also took aim at franchises, saying that Hollywood’s reliance on existing properties prevents interesting new work from being produced.
“The idea that a studio could limit risks by using ideas that have already paid off I think is totally stupid and empties the creative potential out there,” he said. “There are great screenwriters who have ideas and who are very frustrated because the possibility to get a studio on board for an original script is very small.”
Wenders recalled his late friend Jean-Luc Godard’s bleak predictions about Hollywood consolidation, and expressed fear that they might come true if AI takes over Hollywood.
“He had this theory that U.S. studios would do less and less films and at the end they would do just one film all together,” Wenders said of Godard. “It would be the film that everyone on earth would need to see, and it would be the end.”
