AI Dominates Cannes Buzz as Filmmakers Grudgingly Accept It: ‘You Probably Will Be Able to Make Something That Looks Like a Marvel Movie in Your Basement’

Demi Moore was blunt.

“AI is here,” Moore, a jury member at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, said during a press conference on Tuesday. “And so to fight it is to fight something that is a battle that we will lose. So to find ways in which we can work with it, I think, is a more valuable path to take.”

On social media, the reaction was swift and often vicious, with some commentators blaming Moore for selling out and others faulting her for failing to recognize the danger that AI poses to the creative community. But throughout the festival, there was abundant evidence that AI is not only here, it’s already reshaping how movies are produced.

At the Cannes market, there were several films that not only acknowledged their use of AI, but used it as a selling point. They include “Critterz,” an animated family film from Stuart Ford’s AGC Studio that bills itself as “human-led but AI-assisted,” as well as “Paradise Lost,” an adaptation of the John Milton poem from “Pulp Fiction” co-writer Roger Avery and “Bitcoin,” a thriller from “The Bourne Identity’s” Doug Liman, which features Gal Gadot, Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson. “Bitcoin” is being produced by Ryan Kavanaugh, the controversial Relativity Media founder, who is working the Croisette as he drums up interest in his new venture, Acme AI & FX, which promises to help filmmakers with “AI-assisted workflows” and “real-time image development.”