A24 first experienced backlash against artificial intelligence when it released an AI-generated poster for Civil War in 2024. At the time, it was the most expensive piece ever made. why did you make the movie photojournalism Would they use artificially generated images to promote it? Maybe this movie had a big enough budget to avoid using AI for marketing? Did they learn nothing from director Alex Garland’s first movie, Ex Machina? Others, as a rule, simply disliked what they saw.
That backlash came on the heels of the hostility directed at AI during the 2023 Writers’ and Actors’ Strike, but those in power at A24 must surely have known this was a possibility again.
On Monday, A24 and Google DeepMind announced a partnership that includes a $75 million investment from Google as part of their research into developing AI workflows for photography. IndieWire attempted to provide some context on what the deal actually is, reporting that it is strictly a research partnership rather than a production deal, that it does not include any production obligations for films or other specific AI projects, and that the models will not be trained on A24 IP.
However, as I pointed out later in another article, access to A24’s internal processes is essentially relevant to every match. A24’s closely guarded culture is often credited with the company’s success and its cultural reputation. Inviting Google’s AI engineers to the hallowed grounds that catapulted Barry Jenkins, Ari Aster, Greta Gerwig, Jane Schoenbrunn, and now Caine Parsons to celebrity status just doesn’t make sense to anyone who spent $40 on an A24 candle.
A recent tweet from A24 promoting the trailer for Jesse Eisenberg’s film Debut included the comment, “Fucking loser. Movie people need to stop praising this mid-tier production company.” This movie has nothing to do with AI and has no right to catch such strays. One message read: “You’re a joke and a disgrace to filmmaking. Good luck filling your seats.”
It’s not hard to find dissatisfied comments on IndieWire articles every time we write about AI, but even we were shocked by some of the hostility we saw towards this news.
“Dress as you like. A24 just sold his soul.” “NEON has always been the most real.” “It’s such a shame. AI can and will never make art. The sooner this bubble bursts, the better.” “No, A24! You are the chosen one!” “Goodbye, A24, we don’t have the time or inclination to make excuses for fledgling tech companies masquerading as production companies.”
Actress and filmmaker Justine Bateman, who was one of the most vocal critics of AI online during the 2023 WGA strike, was also in tears following the Google DeepMind announcement.
Bateman’s accusation that films have been “altered against their will” is an unfounded assumption, but it highlights the deep mistrust people have when hearing about AI’s genuine involvement in art in any form.
A24 issued a statement to Wired earlier this week reiterating that its partnership with Google DeepMind is for research and that it will never take its relationship with filmmakers for granted. As always, A24 sees this as a way to give creators access to the next wave of tools, not to force or change their work.
“This is a research partnership. We are DeepMind We’re actively working with researchers to learn, iterate, build, and shape new tools and workflows. This partnership exists because we want to dictate what tools we build for artists, so they have a say in shaping them, rather than being handed them. We want to have a seat at the table rather than sitting on the sidelines.”
The counterargument would be like this Any Any form of AI can, or should, be seen as theft, a slippery slope that will take people’s jobs away. Others pointed to Parsons’ recent comments about AI, with the director of “Backrooms” calling AI “creative corruption” and not inherently having much interest in anything produced by AI.
It’s no wonder that the A24 drama was made after Amazon MGM dropped the rights to Luca Guadagnino’s nearly completed new film, Artificial, a “Social Network”-style story about OpenAI’s Sam Altman, but A24 is currently not distributing it themselves. This raises bigger questions about the involvement of technology at Hollywood studios, and for a while it looked like A24 was befriending OpenAI and Lionsgate and outperforming Disney, which is training its runway models on its own IP.
History shows that A24 can easily overcome this controversy. Fresh off the biggest box office hit of all time with “The Back Rooms,” upcoming films include “Primetime,” the “To Catch a Predator” movie starring Chris Hansen and Robert Pattinson, Garland’s “Elden Ring” movie, the Anthony Bourdain biopic, and Olivia Wilde’s Sundance sensation “The Invite,” which opens today.
But just ask MUBI how disputes over funding and investments can sour over time and forever change the perception of a company among its most loyal supporters. A24 would have no problem acquiring or developing films with interesting filmmakers in this regard, but it feels like they’re suddenly not so cool anymore.
