Tag: Opinion

We Need to Talk about Film Directors and Their Relationship with AI | Special Features

Graphic illustrating the relationship between major filmmakers and artificial intelligence. Two circular black-and-white portraits of Steven Soderbergh and Martin Scorsese are at either side of the letters 'AI' in a dashed-line box. On a vibrant red-orange-blue gradient background.
Graphic by author — Source portraits (Modified under CC license): Steven Soderbergh (Adam Chitayat / WikiPortraits) and Martin Scorsese (Montclair Film),

Hollywood has long waged a war with generative artificial intelligence, i.e., the “group of AI algorithms and models that are capable of producing new content, including texts, images, videos and problem-solving strategies, with human-like creativity and adaptability,” as defined in a journal article from the National Science Review in 2025. Generative artificial intelligence has often been criticized for using publicly available images, audio, and writing as training data to create its output, which many naturally consider to be stealing human work. There have naturally been notable strikes in Tinseltown over protecting human-created design, performance, or writing, as well as protecting the human jobs and roles that AI threatens to change or completely erase. But, back when the Screen Actors’ Guild and the Writers Guild of America were striking, they were noticeably without their brothers and sisters in the director’s chair from the DGA (Directors Guild of America), so to speak. That’s because DGA reached an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) without ensuring the other parties had seats at the table. So, while the DGA ensured that its members would not be replaced by technological advances, other Hollywood creatives had to pound the pavement and strike. It was a huge story at the time in 2023, and the DGA came under heavy fire for the way they went about it. Now, three years later, individual directors are again making decisions on their own that may have an impact on the entire industry. Though this time around, notable directors are opening the door for generative AI in ways that feel anathema to the collaborative creative processes involved with filmmaking. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we’re not just talking about a few notable directors. Rather, we’re now starting to talk about some of the biggest names in Hollywood. It’s shocking, and we need to talk about why this is happening and what it means both for their legacy and for Hollywood as a whole.

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Yes, Joe Russo’s Video Response was, indeed, Ill-considered and Irritating

In October, Francesca Scorsese, whose father is the legendary Oscar-winning American filmmaker Martin Scorsese, posted a fun video on the social media application TikTok in which Martin Scorsese jokingly and playfully directs the family dog named ‘Oscar’ through an ‘audition’ for ‘a role.’ Explaining jokes defeats the purpose of the joke, but, for the purpose of this article, I should stress that the joke has nothing to do with the dog’s name — rather what is so funny and charming about the video is, first, the reveal that he’s talking to a dog, and, later, the family dog’s responses (or lack thereof) to his direction. I, and many others in the online film community, enjoyed the video quite a bit. Then, sometime thereafter, frequent Marvel collaborator and Avengers: Infinity War co-director Joe Russo posted a video response to Instagram, in which he said that he, too, has a Schnauzer as a pet, and then he makes note of the Scorsese family dog’s name before announcing that it’s ‘cute,’ but his dog’s name is Box Office.

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Martin Scorsese Thinks Superhero Films Are Like Theme Parks – Special Features #55

Stick with me here, as I’m going to be repeating myself a little bit. A little over a year ago, I wrote an article about Ethan Hawke’s opinion that James Mangold’s Logan is a ‘fine superhero film’ but not a great film. I disagreed with one of my favorite actors, and, in that article, I explained why.

I concluded that: “Even though I have expressed how I disagree with his comments, Hawke shouldn’t be criticized too much for having made them. It is just one man’s opinion. Hawke certainly didn’t ‘attack’ the genre and his comments, therefore, shouldn’t be read as one.” Continue reading “Martin Scorsese Thinks Superhero Films Are Like Theme Parks – Special Features #55” →