A leading Hollywood figure has warned “it’s likely over for us”, after watching a widely disseminated AI-generated clip featuring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting.
Rhett Reese, co-writer of Deadpool & Wolverine, Zombieland and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t was reacting to a 15-second video showing Cruise and Pitt trading punches on a rubble-strewn bridge, posted by Irish film-maker Ruairí Robinson, director of 2013 sci-fi horror The Last Days on Mars. Reposting the clip on social media, Reese wrote: “I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”
He added: “In next to no time, one person is going to be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases. True, if that person is no good, it will suck. But if that person possesses Christopher Nolan’s talent and taste (and someone like that will rapidly come along), it will be tremendous.”
Robinson said that the clip resulted from a “2 line prompt in Seedance 2”, referring to the AI video generator Seedance 2.0, released on Thursday by TikTok co-owners ByteDance.
The Motion Picture Association (MPA), the Hollywood trade association, accused ByteDance of “unauthorised use of US copyrighted works on a massive scale”.
AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and video-making tools are trained on data taken from the open web, including copyright-protected material such as novels, art and film clips. This has led to artists and creative industries demanding compensation for the use of their material and the establishment of licensing frameworks to enable legal use of their content. Amid lawsuits related to those disputes, some creative companies such as Disney are signing deals with AI firms including OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.
Calling on ByteDance to “cease its infringing activity”, MPA chair and CEO Charles Rivkin said: “By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs.”
Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer in the UK and a prominent campaigner against relaxing copyright law, said AI companies must strike deals with the creative industries.
Kidron, who has also worked in Hollywood as a film director, said: “This is just the latest in a long stream of copyright abuses, but honestly from my conversations with both sides I believe there is a will between AI companies and the creative sector to make a deal. It seems to me that the AI sector needs to come to the table with a “real offer” that satisfies the creative industries. Otherwise we will have a decade of litigation and the destruction of an industry on which they depend.”
ByteDance has been contacted for comment.
