“It’s over for us”: this AI fight between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise scares Hollywood

A video made with artificial intelligence imagines a fight in a devastated New York between the two Hollywood stars. Everything is fake. Except the fear that grips the industry with this kind of AI production.

No, this is not a sequence from a future Mission: Impossible 9.

A virtual fight, posted online these days, pits Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise against each other. And it’s impressive. A video generated by artificial intelligence which is panicking Hollywood and already worrying the screenwriters.

The AI-generated video, stunningly realistic, shows the two stars confronting each other on a ruined bridge, in a devastated New York. It went viral within days. The 15-second clip was released by Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2002 for a short film. He claims to have created it simply with a two-line prompt via a model belonging to ByteDance, parent company of TikTok. Watch:

The Motion Picture Association was quick to respond. Its president Charles Rivkin accuses the service of having massively used protected works without authorization and calls for an immediate end to these practices, denouncing a contempt for copyright and a direct threat to millions of creative jobs.

Among the most striking reactions, that of screenwriter Rhett Reese, known for Deadpool & Wolverine And Zombieland. On the networks, he did not hide his concern:

“I hate to say this…but it’s probably over for us.”

Fatalist, he believes that rapid progress in technology means that very soon a single person will be able to create, from their computer, a film indistinguishable from a Hollywood production. And if that person has the talent of a Christopher Nolan, he warns, the result could be “tremendous”. A compliment that actually hides a deep fear. He also specifies:

“To be clear: I am absolutely not excited about AI encroaching on creative fields. On the contrary, I am terrified. So many people I love are at risk of losing careers they love. I, too, am in danger. When I wrote ‘It’s Over,’ I didn’t want it to sound flippant or light. I was blown away by the Pitt vs. Cruise video because it’s so professional. It’s precisely That’s why it scares me. My pessimistic view is that Hollywood is about to be revolutionized… or decimated. If you really think this video is mediocre and uninteresting, you have nothing to fear. But I’m shaken.