Sign up to see the future, today<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n
This week, the Wall Street Journal ran a provocative story claiming that a fully AI-generated movie called \u201cHell Grind\u201d was being screened at the iconic Cannes Film Festival, dropping a nuclear bomb in the middle of the already-heated debate on the tech\u2019s intrusion into the art and business of cinema.<\/p>\n
\u201cFour street thieves are on the road to hell, literally, in an action-adventure movie debuting at the Cannes Film Festival Thursday,\u201d the newspaper wrote<\/a>. \u201cBut what\u2019s compelling about \u2018Hell Grind\u2019 isn\u2019t the campy plot: It\u2019s that every character, setting and prop in the 95-minute movie was generated by AI.\u201d<\/p>\n But we couldn\u2019t find the AI movie on the official schedule<\/a> of the prestigious event, which is held every year on the French Riviera. So we reached out to the organizers of the festival, who denied that they\u2019re showing it at all, saying instead that the film was presented in a third-party screening at a local theater in the town of Cannes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can confirm that \u2018Hell Grind\u2019 was not screened as part of the official Festival de Cannes program,\u201d a Cannes spokesperson told us. \u201cAs publicly reported by Screen Daily and other media outlets, the project was presented during an industry event organized by third parties in Cannes.\u201d<\/p>\n The company behind the film, Higgsfield AI, doesn\u2019t seem interested in clarifying the confusion. When the company\u2019s founder Alex Mashrabov posted on LinkedIn<\/a> this week that \u201cwe just premiered at Cannes our first 95-minute feature film\u201d \u2014 and boasted that \u201cfor decades, Cannes has been the room where new cinema gets legitimized\u201d \u2014 certain reactions were sharp.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t screening at the Festival de Cannes, which is what you\u2019re implying,\u201d director John Washburn shot back in the replies. \u201cThe [Cin\u00e9ma Olympia] is a movie theatre that happens to be in the town of Cannes but it isn\u2019t a venue for the festival. The suggestion that paying for a screening at some random theatre in the same town and at the same time as a major festival is somehow the same thing as being selected by that festival \u2014 the actual \u2018room\u2019 where new cinema gets \u2018legitimized\u2019 \u2014 is misleading at best. Spurious bullshittery, really.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither the WSJ nor Higgsfield replied to requests for comment, but we\u2019ll update if they do.<\/p>\n This kind of chicanery is not an uncommon tactic for filmmakers trying to hijack some of the buzz of one of the most paid-attention-to events in cinema every year. But it\u2019s also emblematic of the misleading hype that AI companies feed off, making grand claims and awing the public with exhibitions that aren\u2019t quite what they seem. That a major newspaper bought the hype and reported it was showing at Cannes when it wasn\u2019t is a testament to where things are at.<\/p>\n The tentacles of AI have ensnared themselves in all manner of industries, but the tech has an especially strong hold on film. AI video generators promise to upend traditional modes of filmmaking as we know it, a sentiment glibly expressed by the common AI bro refrain that \u201cHollywood is cooked.\u201d No longer will you need expensive actors, cameras, or sets to make that story idea you\u2019ve had rolling around in your head since you were a teenager a reality. You just need to know what to whisper to an AI model.\u00a0<\/p>\n And since film is a popular medium, it\u2019s easy for AI boosters to show something that on a surface level appears to transform it. Earlier this year, a purportedly AI-generated video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting on a rooftop went viral for its blockbuster-like quality that had even Marvel screenwriters prophesying the death of the industry<\/a>. It turned out, however, that the video was an AI-reskin of existing footage<\/a> of two human performers fighting in front of a green screen. In other words, it was pure theater.<\/p>\n The creators of \u201cHell Grind\u201d are also making striking claims. The film supposedly took just two weeks and $500,000 to make, per the WSJ. A full 80 percent of that went to compute costs; its creators describe it as a proof-of-concept for how AI can empower creatives who wouldn\u2019t otherwise have the means to make a movie, a common pro-AI spiel. Of course, given the specious marketing around it being shown in Cannes, all of these should be taken with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n \u201cThe main aim as a filmmaker is I just wanted to tell stories,\u201d Adilet Abish, an in-house director and creative producer at Higgsfield who worked on the film, told the WSJ. \u201cThis is the case where AI can give you the tool to show the world your story.\u201d<\/p>\n Right off the bat, it\u2019s clear that \u201cHell Grind\u201d isn\u2019t the type of flick designed to garner awards at prestigious festivals like Cannes. It\u2019s a 95-minute sci-fi action movie heavy on epic slow-mo shots and irreverent dialog \u2014 or that\u2019s what the three minute trailer Higgsfield released this week<\/a> suggests, at least. It follows a perennially blood-soaked dude named \u201cRoco\u201d and three other street thieves we care about whose \u201cheist goes catastrophically wrong when an ancient artifact tears one of them into the underworld.\u201d Battles against demons with overwhelming odds ensue.<\/p>\n \u201cHell Grind,\u201d in other words, is exactly the kind of cheesy spectacle you\u2019d expect AI bros to make. While the visuals are impressively shiny at times, they can\u2019t cover up the aesthetic predilections of generative AI or the people who use it. Roco\u2019s love interest looks like every other \u201cphotorealistic\u201d but bordering-on-anime AI-generated waifu, less a character and more an amalgamation of attractive features that an algorithm averaged together. Ditto for the generic demon antagonists.<\/p>\n Its creators at Higgsfield insist that a lot of work and skill goes into making an AI film. The company makes a tool that harnesses other video generating models like Google\u2019s Veo 3 to fine tune their outputs and ensure their images remain consistent across the thousands of short, 15-second clips they churn out that the tool later stitches together.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to understand camera composition, which shots are changed. Like you can\u2019t have two close-ups back to back, you have to start with an establishing shot,\u201d Adil Alimzhanov, a content lead at Higgsfield, told the WSJ. \u201cYou still need those filmmaking skills.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s entering a polarizing atmosphere on AI in the industry broadly, and at Cannes specifically. Some big names at the festival have come out in support. \u201cThe Substance\u201d star Demi Moore declared that \u201cAI was here,\u201d calling on filmmakers to \u201cfind ways that we can work with it.\u201d Nicolas Winding Refn, the director of \u201cDrive\u201d (2011) and this year\u2019s \u201cHer Private Hell,\u201d compared<\/a> AI to a painter\u2019s brush, saying it came down to the artist to figure \u201cwhat you\u2019re going to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Others were fiercely opposed. \u201cAI doesn\u2019t have a chance,\u201d actress Tilda Swinton said<\/a>, adding: \u201cHumans make cinema, right?\u201d<\/p>\n Guillermo Del Toro, the director of \u201cPan\u2019s Labyrinth,\u201d favored brevity. <\/p>\n \u201cF*ck AI,\u201d he said<\/a>, to thunderous applause.<\/p>\n