Shortly after the announcement of an “AI actor” dubbed Tilly Norwood drew overwhelming criticism, Italian movie producer Andrea Iervolino has announced plans to take the trend to its logical conclusion.
As Deadline reports, Iervolino unveiled what he claims will be the first film directed entirely by an AI entity, titled “The Sweet Idleness.”
Iervolino is no joke; his credits include “Ferrari,” a 2023 action movie starring Adam Driver, and the 2017 drama “To the Bone,” starring Lily Collins and Keanu Reeves.
The unusual flick will be directed by an AI dubbed “FellinAI,” which will be supervised and guided by Iervolino, who frames himself as the “human-in-the-loop.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, “The Sweet Idleness” is about a future in which humanity enjoys the kind of “era of abundance” AI companies and investors have been promising for years. Those who still work in this fictional world do it as part of a symbolic ritual, per Deadline, while the rest are free to do as they please.
A trailer for the movie — a still shot is pictured above — appears to be entirely AI-generated, suggesting the project is predominantly a product of the tech itself and may not feature human actors, either.
The AI industry has sent clear signals that it’s looking to take over Hollywood. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced it had teamed up with production companies in London and Los Angeles to create a feature-length animated movie made largely with AI.
Iervolino’s announcement comes at a time when skepticism and outright hatred of AI-generated content have reached a fever pitch, with tech companies encountering major backlash after announcing a slew of new social media apps designed to share AI slop.
Users on social media immediately disparaged Iervolino’s project, calling it “garbage” and “f**king stupid.”
The announcement of the “AI actor” Tilly Norwood created a particularly massive stir, with major Hollywood stars denouncing the project.
A-lister actress Emily Blunt called the project “terrifying,” telling Variety that agencies should “stop taking away our human connection.”
“You are suddenly up against something that’s been generated with 5,000 other actors… so it’s a little bit of an unfair advantage,” Oscar-winning actress Whoopi Goldberg said on “The View” earlier this week.
Norwood “is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers,” the Screen Actors Guild said in a statement.
In short, Iervolino will likely have plenty of criticism to contend with if he goes through with the project.
In a statement, he argued that “The Sweet Idleness” will represent a “new chapter in the history of cinema,” according to Deadline — but added that it wasn’t designed to “replace traditional cinema.”
How that line of reasoning will sit with human directors remains to be seen.
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