James Cameron has said generative AI is the “next big wave in cinema technology” and “a genie that has been released from the bottle”.
“We haven’t learned how to control it yet,” he added.
Speaking from New Zealand, where he is wrapping post-production on Avatar: Fire And Ash, Cameron spoke candidly about the potential possibilities and threats of generative AI.
“I can’t think of anything coming up that is bigger and more important to us right now than confronting this generative AI issue,” he said. “It is critical that we master it and control it so that it remains an artistic tool and it doesn’t replace artists.
“The idea that this technology could potentially replace actors and the unique lens that every artist brings is horrifying…The new tools have the possibility of doing great harm because they can replace an actor or they can synthesise an actor who is dead.
”There are some very dangerous things ahead of us right now, but I’ve never been afraid of new technology,” he added. “I want to learn it, I want to master it for myself, then use my own best judgment about how I apply it to my personal art.”
Cameron, who has been at the forefront of using cutting-edge VFX technology in films such as The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Titanic and Avatar, added that a benefit of generative AI could be its potential to facilitate production, “bring down the cost of big, imaginative movies” and cut production time.
“It takes me four years to make an Avatar movie, so I think about how great it would be if I could do it in three years or two years,” he said. “I wouldn’t be going to the beach for that year or two – I’d be making another movie. Maybe I could squeeze a little more work into the remainder of my lifetime, a little more in my oeuvre at the end of the day.
“Movies are very, very expensive now and it seems to me that the cinema is becoming less important to the world at large, which is horrifying as well after spending 42 years making movies to be seen in movie theatres. We’re not seeing as many movies getting greenlit and getting made of the type that I love – the fantasy, the phantasmagorical, science fiction, big, visually opulent films.”
Cameron said generative AI can play an important role in getting more of these films greenlit but added: “We as the artists in movies, in television, have to set the rules for it. Right now, there are no rules. It’s the Wild West.”
Cannes
The US filmmaker is the focus of an immersive exhibition at Cannes’ Palais des Festivals, running through August 24, titled ‘The Art of James Cameron’, tracing his career and creative process from childhood notebooks to his recent projects. It features some 300 original pieces including drawings, pastels, paintings, props, costumes, photographs and 3D devices. It launched in Paris last year and will next head to Istanbul.
While his experience at the Cannes Film Festival has been limited, Cameron said: “My most fun memory from Cannes is meeting Quentin Tarantino when he was there for Reservoir Dogs, hanging out, getting drunk, talking about movies.”
Next up for Cameron are adaptations of Joe Abercrombie’s fantasy novel The Devils and the Charles Pellegrino novel Ghosts Of Hiroshima which he plans to film in 3D.
“The apocalypse has been on my mind since my teens and 20s… Committing to making this film about Hiroshima is a fulfillment of all that angst as a young person about the world because the problem hasn’t resolved itself in 80 years since I was a kid worrying about it.”
Cameron said he hasn’t yet written the script for Ghosts Of Hiroshima, but added: “If we make some money with Avatar 3, I’m still going to make Avatar 4 and 5 – they’re all written. I’d like to see the whole saga come to fruition. I don’t know if I can sneak Ghosts Of Hiroshima in there before or if it will have to be after.”
Of his future as a filmmaker, he said: “I’m happy to report I still have a pretty healthy imagination. I still have strong dreams every night – some horrible, some terrifying, some beautiful, some where I wake up and I’m sad to wake up. In early days, the only way to express myself was in drawing and painting. Now I can express myself through cinema. It’s an ongoing process. It never ends.”