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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Australian director Alex Proyas, best known for The Crow, Dark City and I Robot, could not be more strongly opposed to triple Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro\u2019s warning last week<\/a> about the dangers of using artificial intelligence to make films.<\/p>\n The Mexican director of Pan\u2019s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water and Frankenstein sounded the alarm in Los Angeles about the encroachment of AI in the human-led process of making art, saying he would \u201crather die\u201d than use it to make a film.<\/p>\n \u201cI know Guillermo,\u201d Proyas said, \u201cand he\u2019s a brilliant filmmaker and a very nice man but he\u2019s absolutely wrong on this particular issue. There\u2019s a lot of pushback, of course, and it\u2019s completely understandable. I feel like I\u2019m at the advent of the talkie and it\u2019s the actors with a voice fighting the actors who were silent.\u201d<\/p>\n If that sounds like a big call \u2013 that AI will change film as much as sound changed cinema \u2013 Proyas is a believer enough to be preparing to shoot a new film in Los Angeles, the sci-fi satire Heaven, using what he calls a hybrid model of AI.<\/p>\n Related Article He said a film that might have cost $US100 million ($143 million) to make by traditional methods but was viewed as \u201cuncommercial in the eyes of the mainstream studios\u201d could be shot for a fraction of the cost and be finished much quicker.<\/p>\n Proyas is currently casting Heaven in Sydney. His first film as director since 2016\u2019s Gods of Egypt<\/a>, it\u2019s about a man who uploads his consciousness to an apparently perfect afterlife but discovers that it\u2019s a long way from paradise.<\/p>\n Proyas is also leading the judging panel for the AI film festival Omni 1.5<\/a>, which takes place in Sydney\u2019s Haymarket on July 3.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I like about generative AI is that it\u2019s allowing a lot more filmmakers who didn\u2019t have access to tell their original stories,\u201d he said. \u201cThe gatekeepers have been pushed to the side for the moment.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cSuddenly there\u2019ll be many more new voices \u2013 young voices, diverse voices, unique voices \u2013 bringing new work and new vision to the screen. That\u2019s why I believe in it and that\u2019s why I\u2019m also actively engaged in creating work deploying AI.\u201d<\/p>\n Proyas said AI films had almost reached the stage of being just as convincing as traditionally made films.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day something new pops up that is truly remarkable,\u201d he said. \u201cThe tests we\u2019ve been doing for Heaven are incredible. The line between photo reality and where AI started, which was very bad images of Will Smith eating spaghetti, is blurring more and more.<\/p>\n \u201cSoon it will be invisible, just as in the early days of computer graphics \u2018uncanny valley\u2019 was awful and it took a long time for audiences to accept it as a legitimate creative storytelling tool for filmmakers. Now, of course, it\u2019s invisible and AI will follow that same pathway. It\u2019s inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n Proyas said Heaven still started with him writing the script and only using AI as a research tool, like an \u201cadvanced Google\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe use real actors \u2013 real human actors \u2013 and we\u2019re on a set with a crew,\u201d he said. \u201cA much diminished crew, of course, because the tools allow you to do so much more [with] a leaner operation. It\u2019s cheaper as a result because there are fewer mouths to feed in that process.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that opens up the possibility of more artists doing world building-type stories in a way that they wouldn\u2019t been able to do in the past.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019m on the set with my real human collaborators \u2013 my actors, my camera team, my sound team, my first AD, my script supervisor, my production designer, my costume designer \u2013 because all these people are essential to the collaborative human endeavour that I embark on.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\u201cI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f7521f6b381f5b6556a8d4506856581c6281eafa.jpeg\")
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m at the advent of the talkie and it\u2019s the actors with a voice fighting the actors who were silent\u201d: Australian director Alex Proyas. Steven Siewert<\/p>\n![\"Hugh](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782183257_898_650540f348333cd7b0452588657f348e29cb5e16.jpeg\")
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As well as planning to shoot Heaven as a hybrid AI film, Alex Proyas is judging the AI film festival Omni 1.5 next month.Steven Siewert<\/p>\n![\"For](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/324189030e3003d2d66fb395fc05676a4c80a8c6.jpeg\")
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An award winner at last year\u2019s Omni AI film festival: Laszlo Gaal\u2019s The Bullfighter. <\/p>\n![\"Will](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/813150f5445924ba2d502e37237e7bea488c1319.jpeg\")
Will Smith in Alex Proyas\u2019 2004 sci-fi film I, Robot. <\/p>\n