‘Avengers’ Director Joe Russo Has A Bleak Vision Of AI-Generated Movies

The impact of generative AI continues to ripple throughout the creative industries, as artists grapple with what it means to be able to conjure images, music and video with a few prompts.

Joe Russo, co-director of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, offered his thoughts on the impact of generative AI on Hollywood, making a bleak, bold prediction that he framed as a positive development.

“Two years,” Russo told Collider, when asked “how many years” it will take until AI is able to “actually create” a movie. Russo went on to elaborate how he sees AI might integrate into the art of filmmaking:

“Potentially, what you could do with [AI] is obviously use it to engineer storytelling and change storytelling … You could walk into your house and save the AI on your streaming platform. ‘Hey, I want a movie starring my photoreal avatar and Marilyn Monroe’s photoreal avatar. I want it to be a rom-com because I’ve had a rough day,’ and it renders a very competent story with dialogue that mimics your voice. It mimics your voice, and suddenly now you have a rom-com starring you that’s 90 minutes long. So you can curate your story specifically to you.”

Russo doesn’t seem to be describing a movie at all, but a self-insert fantasy, a digital daydream devoid of imagination; one could imagine Russo’s suggestion appearing in a dystopian vision of the future written by a jaded sci-fi writer (it’s certainly not far from the nightmare written by Roald Dahl).

Much of the magic of movies comes from relating to fictional characters, empathizing with those who inhabit a dream world, and likely don’t resemble us in the slightest; is the future of storytelling really to place a digital clone of ourselves into a AI-generated romcom with Marilyn Monroe?

There’s even a ghoulish irony in Russo referencing Monroe, a star who was ruthlessly exploited, even in death, with the burial plot above her body put up for sale and advertised with the slogan: “Spend eternity directly above Marilyn Monroe.”

Ironically, Marvel films are often jokingly compared to AI-generated media, designed for mass consumption, to sell superhero merchandise (although, the Russo’s MCU films are often heralded as among the strongest of the franchise).

On Twitter, many expressed bewilderment that any director would welcome a landscape of media generated by machines, mashing together the output of artists to create hollow imitations.

Russo’s vision wasn’t just bleak, it also seems factually wrong; generative AI is not capable of understanding context, and will likely never be able to edit together a full movie that isn’t hilariously, uncannily “off.”

What Russo describes seems little more than a novelty, or a tool for making memes and misinformation. In the same interview, Russo did mention that he was “on the board of a few AI companies,” which perhaps explains his enthusiasm.

AI could potentially be used as a tool in the scriptwriting process; the Writers Guild of America has proposed allowing artificial intelligence to help write scripts, as long as it does not affect writers’ credits or residuals. But with another writer’s strike looming, the threat of AI seems relevant.

Generative AI, however, just isn’t capable of creating stories beyond bland, generic echoes of the Hero’s Journey. The last thing the film industry needs is more mediocrity; even if we can insert ourselves into it.