{"id":442977,"date":"2026-02-01T14:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442977\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T14:59:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:59:20","slug":"darren-aronofskys-new-ai-generated-series-about-the-revolutionary-war-gets-pushback-after-the-release-of-1st-episodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442977\/","title":{"rendered":"Darren Aronofsky’s new AI-generated series about the Revolutionary War gets pushback after the release of 1st episodes"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Pi to AI? On Thursday, Darren Aronofsky released the first two episodes<\/a> of his AI-generated Revolutionary War series on Time\u2019s YouTube channel\u00a0\u2014 but not everyone is excited about the prolific filmmaker\u2019s latest venture.<\/p>\n

Titled On This Day\u2026 1776, the series, made using a combination of AI tools<\/a> and traditional film production, is intended to roll out each episode on the 250th anniversary of the events depicted throughout the year. The first episode<\/a> released, however, takes place on Jan. 1, 1776, and the second episode<\/a> on Jan. 10, 1776. A trailer<\/a> for the series also dropped.<\/p>\n

On This Day comes from Aronofsky\u2019s AI-focused production company Primordial Soup, which utilizes Google\u2019s AI tech, DeepMind. Although the visuals are AI-created, the new series uses voices from performers with the Screen Actors Guild. A writers\u2019 room was also set up for the series, led by Lucas Sussman, who is also an executive producer.<\/p>\n

According to the producers, the project\u2019s goal is \u201creframing the Revolution not as a foregone conclusion but as a fragile experiment shaped by those who fought for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Bitonti, president of Time Studios, said in a statement, per the Hollywood Reporter<\/a>: \u201cThis project is a glimpse at what thoughtful, creative, artist-led use of AI can look like \u2014 not replacing craft, but expanding what\u2019s possible and allowing storytellers to go places they simply couldn\u2019t before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aronofsky, known for films like Black Swan, The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream and Pi,\u00a0 has already raised the issue of using AI in the film industry. \u201cThese tools are coming. They\u2019re being used at an incredible adoption rate, but they\u2019re mostly being used for slop,\u201d he said in an August 2025 interview with the Guardian<\/a>. \u201cSo I feel that, as storytellers, we need to harness these tools to help us do our work. There are a lot of artists who are fighting against AI, but I don\u2019t see that as making any sense. If we don\u2019t shape these tools, somebody else will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet not everyone is happy about his choice to make a TV series relying heavily on AI tools. The YouTube comments are flooded with anti-AI criticism, one user writing that the series is proof that real films are not going anywhere, and calling out its \u201chorrible\u201d acting, bad lip-synching and awkward pacing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI can certainly help with VFX, sound effects, and cleanup in the right hands,\u201d they wrote, \u201cbut AI cannot make a movie that anyone wants to watch. I couldn\u2019t finish even this 4 minute long mess. This film is more about trying to hide AI\u2019s faults than telling a good story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another user criticized Google\u2019s AI as being a system that learns by using others’ intellectual property. \u201cThe real question is what source material did the AI steal to create all these images? \u00a0Most traditional FILM\/TV studios are not allowing any AI use unless it’s in a closed system that doesn’t steal IP randomly. Google’s AI [is] built on the theft of everyone else’s IP. Would love to see a behind the scenes of the filmmakers explaining this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several others declared the series \u201cAI slop,\u201d while one user called it both \u201cwholly unethical to produce\u201d and \u201cdeeply unpleasant to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can feel the lack of artistry \u2014 the lack of skilled animators and actors and cinematographers \u2014 in every shot,\u201d the user continued. \u201cNever do this again, TIME.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entertainment industry has been locked in a battle with AI for some time, with both SAG and the Writers Guild of America adding stipulations for AI protections<\/a> in their contracts with studios. On Thursday, it was announced that SAG was considering a tax for studios that used digital performers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet others in Hollywood are embracing AI, despite the backlash from their peers. Last year, producer Eline van der Velden\u2019s U.K. production company Particle6 and its AI talent division, Xicoia, unveiled \u201cTilly Norwood,\u201d<\/a> an AI-created performer the company likened to actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. Immediately, real Hollywood actors clapped back<\/a>, voicing their concern that Norwood and digital performers like her would take jobs from real humans. SAG-AFTRA also spoke out<\/a>, objecting in a statement that \u201ccreativity is, and should remain, human-centered\u201d and that it opposes \u201cthe replacement of human performers by synthetics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Pi to AI? On Thursday, Darren Aronofsky released the first two episodes of his AI-generated Revolutionary War…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,21826,94125,168,206648,143273,74,9280],"class_list":{"0":"post-442977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-darren-aronofsky","12":"tag-filmmaker","13":"tag-google","14":"tag-primordial-soup","15":"tag-revolutionary-war","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-youtube"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}