{"id":497935,"date":"2026-06-13T15:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T15:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/497935\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T15:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T15:18:08","slug":"gore-verbinski-on-rating-system-for-ai-kindred-spirit-johnny-depp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/497935\/","title":{"rendered":"Gore Verbinski on ‘Rating System’ for AI, ‘Kindred Spirit’ Johnny Depp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAmerican director Gore Verbinski<\/a>, who is at the Taormina Film Festival<\/a> in competition with \u201cGood Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die,\u201d spoke about the challenges of labelling the use of AI in films as the technology continues to grow exponentially.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tVerbinski\u2019s latest, a genre-bending sci-fi that sees Sam Rockwell as a time-travelling madman recruiting help to save humanity from the threat of artificial intelligence, led the director to take a deep dive into new tools. Asked about the consequences AI will have on filmmaking, the veteran issued an alert: \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to check this box to say no AI is used in your movie, and it\u2019s going to become very complicated soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou\u2019d have to go back 20 years,\u201d he noted. \u201cTechnically speaking, artificial intelligence was being used for grading films, sharpening tools\u2026 These tools have existed for 20 years. You almost need a rating system. If you use AI to write a script, you get an F. What people are most afraid of is that there is no transparency. People are afraid of what is real and what isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlas, Verbinski is no purist, and doesn\u2019t see the issue of labelling AI usage as purely black and white. If an independent filmmaker \u201ccouldn\u2019t afford\u201d to create a certain passage in their film that was \u201ca central aspect\u201d of its emotional metaphor, that would be \u201cok,\u201d according to the director. \u201cI think you have to be absolutely transparent [about] what it was used for. I would never try to use it to be in front of the story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother major concern for Verbinski is how artificial intelligence is erasing entry-level positions, given that the new technology has primarily taken over menial tasks formerly attributed to interns, apprentices and assistants. \u201cThe loss of apprenticeship is a major concern,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re seeing in law firms, everywhere, it\u2019s happening. It\u2019s going to start happening in filmmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI do think the path for young filmmakers is going to be forever changed,\u201d he added, noting how the film industry used to recruit directors who worked on music videos and commercials. Now the entry pathways are much murkier. \u201cThe more you do it, the more you learn. I think you\u2019re going to see more content creation people who are making things for YouTube or shorts, and you\u2019re going to see a lot of AI-created narratives. As the industry reaches for those storytellers, that will be very interesting: are they grabbing at somebody who was cheating?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cGood Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die\u201d (Courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment)<\/p>\n

\n\tVerbinski, who directed three installments of the \u201cPirates of the Caribbean\u201d franchise between 2003 and 2007, recalled his time working on the major productions. Looking back at memories of the set, the director emphasized how his relationship with the franchise\u2019s star, Johnny Depp, is \u201creally precious\u201d to him. \u201cWe\u2019re kindred spirits,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI also felt like with the crew, there was something,\u201d he went on. \u201cWe knew this was going to be the end of these movies where you get on a boat and go out to sea with a camera. We knew they were never going to let us do this, and this is going to end up in blue and green screens and process and gimbals. It\u2019s crazy, right? It\u2019s crazy to actually go out to sea with a camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director reiterated that, \u201cwhen you make films on a stage or films that are completely synthetic, you\u2019re swinging the cart in front of the horse and chasing something that is inherently unreal. I think there was a real spirit of [knowing] we were at the end of an era.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for what\u2019s next, Verbinski said he would gladly welcome the opportunity of running in the opposite direction of new technologies and strip down his filmmaking to the very basics. \u201cI would love to go purely analog and just tell a movie with no visual effects, no animation or anything. Because I think that\u2019s the fundamental of storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cThe Ring\u201d director said he has \u201cquite a few things on the burner,\u201d but it is a \u201cstingy time\u201d and a \u201ctough\u201d moment for original IP. One of the 30-highest-grossing directors of all-time, with major blockbusters and critical darlings under his belt, the filmmaker still struggled to finance \u201cGood Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die,\u201d eventually eschewing the studio system and independently financing the ambitious cautionary tale.\u00a0Briarcliff Entertainment eventually picked up the film for U.S. distribution, and released it in movie theaters back in February, after its Berlinale bow.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe does have some hope, however, for the future of cinema-going and audiences\u2019 curiosity about original stories. Commenting on recent horror box-office phenomena such as \u201cObsession\u201d and \u201cBackrooms,\u201d Verbinski noted: \u201cIt\u2019s a fascinating time. People seem to still go to the movies for the communal experience of being scared. It\u2019s hard to get people to go to the cinema [\u2026] Anything is a win if people start showing up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American director Gore Verbinski, who is at the Taormina Film Festival in competition with \u201cGood Luck, Have Fun,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,213256,31589,61,60,212817,80],"class_list":["post-497935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-good-luck-have-fun-donu2019t-die","tag-gore-verbinski","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-taormina-film-festival","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}