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AI Movies

Hollywood's AI Bet Isn't Paying Off (wired.com) 46

Posted by msmash from the uncanny-valley-of-death dept.
Hollywood's recent attempts to build entertainment around AI have consistently underperformed or outright flopped, whether the AI in question is a plot device or a production tool. The horror sequel M3GAN 2.0, Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning, and Disney's Tron: Ares all disappointed at the box office in 2025 despite centering their narratives on AI.

The latest casualty is Mercy, a January 2026 crime thriller in which Chris Pratt faces an AI judge bot played by Rebecca Ferguson; one reviewer has already called it "the worst movie of 2026," and its ticket sales have been mediocre. AI-generated content hasn't fared any better. Darren Aronofsky executive-produced On This Day...1776, a YouTube web series that uses Google DeepMind video generation alongside real voice actors to dramatize the American Revolution. Viewer response has been brutal -- commenters mocked the uncanny faces and the fact that DeepMind rendered "America" as "Aamereedd."

A Taika Waititi-directed Xfinity commercial set to air during this weekend's Super Bowl, which de-ages Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, has already been mocked for producing what one viewer called "melting wax figures."
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Hollywood's AI Bet Isn't Paying Off More

Hollywood's AI Bet Isn't Paying Off

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  • I'd rather watch claymation (Score:3)

    by Morromist ( 1207276 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @10:34PM (#65973926)

    These people are so dumb. Hollywood didn't go all in on computer graphics when they were shitty back in 1980, they waited until they got gud and made avatar in 2009. Maybe someday "AI" will get there but all these people betting the house on "AI" being perfect right out of the box are just stupid people. I wish there were consequences for their failures but that's not the way capitalism in this country seems to work anymore.

    And yes, "AI" has been a thing since before computer graphics, but I'm talking about "AI" as its being hyped in the last 4 years.

    • Re: I'd rather watch claymation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LindleyF ( 9395567 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @10:55PM (#65973950)
      Remember the evolution of computer graphics. Wrath of Kahn's genesis proposal video was state of the art at the time. You could literally see Lightwave improving through the 5 seasons of Babylon 5. DS9's Way of the Warrior was the last hurrah for physical models, Star Trek went all CGI after that. These things take time to figure out. They don't emerge fully formed.
    • The consequences for the failures are real. The issue is that those consequences are too small for well financed and highly capitalized investors.

      Suppose you make a movie and put all your savings into the production. Let's say it's $1m just as an arbitrary amount. Suppose the bet fails and you've lost your savings. Real consequence, and it hurts you. Now suppose the movie producer is Elon. Same outcome, same consequences. But he doesn't hurt, and will do another one right away.

      Having too many rich play

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jhoegl ( 638955 )
      Do you think Avatar was the first time they got used?

      Oh sweet summer child.

    • Re:I'd rather watch claymation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Saturday February 07, 2026 @04:59AM (#65974208)
      What's your problem with claymation? I've never seen any I did not enjoy..

    • Chasing realism on a flat 2D surface was always a fool's errand. But dumping a bunch of money into post processing and editing is what investors want to see, as it is far more difficult to quantify storytelling and good acting. Studios and producers have become so risk adverse they run every film like a business, but are hamstrung by that very lack of risk taking when it comes to art. At best such films can only achieve the level of mediocre entertainment, although often profitable. But they are not films t

  • If AI themed movie is to do well, it has to have a well thought out storyline, preferred meaning to life.

  • It's not AI (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Friday February 06, 2026 @10:43PM (#65973940)
    AI can help with animation and image or video generation. It's a tool. The problem is, Hollywood uses it wrong. Before all this Hollywood was already computer-generating cartoony, offputting versions of actors. It already sucked and the reason is lack of quality control. That lack of quality control persists to the present day. Use AI to generate what it can, and where it can't use practical effects even though that costs more. Hollywood accounting can cover for a lot of things, but making a bad movie isn't one of them.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 )
      I know reading TFA is hard, but at least read the summary before commenting. The article is about people not wanting to watch films about AI. It is not at all about using AI to write or animate films.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 )
        The summary includes quotes about badly generated AI characters: :commenters mocked the uncanny faces".

        You're an idiot and so it whoever modded you up with three suckpuppets.
        • Fair; I should have said something like "primarily" about, since it does mention the reaction, but the actual focus is on films about AI. I overstated the issue.

    • Came here to say that. They should have used generative AI for things like crowds, scenery, monsters, where AI excels and nobody can tell if it's slightly off. AI is great in cutting the cost of something like LOTR. But human faces... the slightest detail off and it becomes a nightmare character; very unwise to start there.

      • Funny, that. I just got done complaining to TSO about their use of it on their main screens last year.

        It was fine for the auxiliary displays rendering small windows and the like, but not for the big stuff.
  • They'll keep cramming it down people's throats until the young people are just fucking used to it and don't know any better. That's how they have done every single shitty thing to us over the last 50 years. They just keep at it until we either get used to it or the people who don't get used to it die off.

    This is why you need better education in schools. You need people who are smart enough that AI swap doesn't cut it for entertainment.

    • That's how they have done every single shitty thing to us over the last 50 years.

      I only know otherwise from learning history as I haven't been alive that long, but given you have, I think there's a better explanation in your case:

      https://quoteinvestigator.com/... [quoteinvestigator.com]

      This is why you need better education in schools.

      What the fuck? Of all the non-sequitors...

      https://youtu.be/d-5hpn2FGnk&t... [youtu.be]

    • They'll keep cramming it down people's throats until the young people are just fucking used to it and don't know any better. That's how they have done every single shitty thing to us over the last 50 years. They just keep at it until we either get used to it or the people who don't get used to it die off. This is why you need better education in schools. You need people who are smart enough that AI swap doesn't cut it for entertainment.

      I got a concussion from banging my head on the wall from all the really bad science/physics in SyFy's The Ark. Does that count? :-)

      Google: The Ark bad (science|physics) [google.com]

  • Average people understand that and for LLM-type AI, experts understand that. Just the layer in between is still clueless and thinks it is the second coming.

  • In the not too distant past all the articles I saw were positive for AI. So far this year the trend all seems to be not positive for AI and this article is just adding to it. I'm rather hoping that the more this sentiment builds, the less appetite there will be to cram AI into everything and we can start getting back to a world that isn't increasingly filled with AI slop.

  • "the worst movie of 2026" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jddj ( 1085169 ) on Saturday February 07, 2026 @12:33AM (#65974026) Journal

    C'mon, "Melania" is offering some VERY stiff competition in that race.

    • C'mon, "Melania" is offering some VERY stiff competition in that race.

      Stiff may just be her delivery 'cause she may actually be a robot. :-)

  • It's shitty movies that would have been shitty without AI. Hollywood is full of failures who have no clue how to write/create good movies yet still get funded to do so. Those hearing pitch meetings clearly aren't smart.
  • ...at least I liked them. They did well and were popular, as was the original megan. I personally think Pluribus is about AI (my wife and I both thought they sound like ChatGPT). This is a stupid story. It's not AI's fault, it's a mediocre story's fault...add an AI theme to a shitty movie and you have a shitty movie. There's a lot of potential with AI stories. The problem is deals are given to familiar names, not talented ones. People work with who they already know and most old writers suck. The VA

    • Wow.

      From my ancient 64 years old what I see, and why I quit watching, are all the 'new' writers are constantly redoing all the 'old' writers stuff because no one I know likes their new shit.

      And they horribly mangle the old stuff to fit their more -something- view they are entitled to through creative license.

      What they started with was considered classic in many cases, what they delivered was shit.

      Hint: It's not the old writing that's the problem.

  • AI bet? (Score:3)

    by karmawarrior ( 311177 ) on Saturday February 07, 2026 @02:16AM (#65974116) Journal

    Three movies mention AI as part of the plot and this means Hollywood has an AI boner right now? Have you watched Hollywood in the last... well, since it started? I mean, some of Slashdot's favorite movies are all about AI and none of them were made this year - The Terminator series, The Matrix, even Age of Ultron.

    The reason these movies tanked are various but:

    - Tron has never done well. We all want it to, but it's not going to happen. Additionally Aries had That Guy in it, and Aries also broke the formula by having it be set primarily in the real world. It just wasn't a good entry in a series that isn't very popular to begin with.
    - Mission Impossible is getting long in the tooth. It's arguably the only one of the three that could have done well, but the marketing did nothing to raise excitement for the movie. Also, no idea what the reviews were like, but I wouldn't recommend it, it seemed more contrived than usual.
    - The Megan "series" flopped because it was supposed to be an entertaining one off, and virtually everyone looking at it said "Why the hell does it have a sequel".

    I don't see any evidence Hollywood is doing an AI bet, they just released three movies that happened to be about AI in some form and happened to flop.

    • I saw both M3gan (1.0) and 2.0 on plane rides last October and I enjoyed both of them, and actually found the second one having a better story. Or, some better ideas and better worked out ideas. More enjoyable, overall.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      Yea this is a weird take in the article. We know AI as a core plot device can do very well. Just look at The Matrix, Terminator, and War Games for example. More recently Ex Machina was very well received. I think you covered the big three in the article well. I know I enjoyed the MI series but still haven't gotten around to the final one yet. Just not into it right now. And one bad movie (Mercy), hell, those happen all the time. Blaming the plot being centered on AI vs just bad writing is certainly a choice

  • Chris Pratt faces an AI judge bot played by Rebecca Ferguson; one reviewer has already called it "the worst movie of 2026,"

    Worse than the robot in that Melania movie? :-)

    (Also the trailer for Mercy said he has to prove his innocence. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?)

  • Melania. So far. Sorry, AI.

  • Mercy was made by people who thought Minority Report was WAY too faithful to the original short story. And who didn't understand how AI worked. There is so, so, SO much wrong with using generative AI, but a story about the impact of AI could work. It has to just be, you know, not extremely lazy and bad. Movies don't exactly need to be High Art every time. Megan 2.0 kind of still worked, because it didn't take itself too seriously. But Mercy, or M:I:Dead Reckoning Part 2 -- er, Final Reckoning? -- ooh boy.
  • They all disappointed as they all had very weak story lines. AI is no different to how they have used special effects or big name actors in the past. They hope it would distract enough from the fucking awful script writing quality
  • I think if AI were writing the stories we would have a lot less trash movies, or at least they could not do any worse than the fucktards they have writing hollywood scripts now.

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