Canadian filmmaker James Cameron is horrified by the idea of AI-generated actors replacing humans in films, he said in a recent interview, adding that he doesn’t want computers to do what he can create on screen with real people.
“Now, go to the other end of the spectrum, and you’ve got generative AI... Where they can make up a character, they can make up an actor. They can make up a performance from scratch with a text prompt. It’s like, no. That’s horrifying to me. That’s the opposite. That’s exactly what we’re not doing,” he said in an interview on CBS’s Sunday Morning.
“I don’t want a computer doing what I pride myself on being able to do with actors. I don’t want to replace actors, I love working with actors,” added Cameron, known for films like Titanic and Avatar.
The 71-year-old director, however, noted that technology can be useful in making VFX cheaper.
“Right now, imaginative films, fantastic films, science-fiction films — they’re starting to die off as a breed because they’re expensive and the theatrical marketplace has contracted and now studios are only comfortable spending those kinds of dollar amounts with blue-chip IP, that which we’ve seen, that which we know. I mean, a movie like Avatar would never get made in that environment. That was brand-new IP; nobody had ever heard of it,” Cameron said.
James Cameron’s film Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third instalment in the Avatar film franchise, is set to release in theatres on 19 December.
Avatar, the first film of the franchise, was released in 2009, followed by its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, which came out in 2022.
Starring Zoe Saldaña and Sam Worthington, Fire and Ash was filmed back-to-back with The Way of Water, which depicted the ongoing conflict between humans and the Na’vi following the return of the ruthless Resources Development Administration (RDA) to Pandora.
Returning alongside Worthington and Saldaña are Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Britain Dalton, Jack Champion, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Bailey Bass, Joel David Moore, Edie Falco, and Dileep Rao.
