Hollywood’s big headache: could Al be the fix? Brad Pitt thinks so
Brad Pitt reckons AI could fix a Hollywood headache that too often leaves films stalled — and he’s got a surprisingly practical target in mind.
Right, so Brad Pitt has decided to throw his thoughts into the current AI debate in Hollywood. And unlike a lot of actors who seem determined to panic about robots stealing their jobs, Pitt appears to be more… strategic about the whole thing. He reckons artificial intelligence might be the very thing that saves a certain kind of movie from extinction: the old-fashioned, proper mid-budget film.
In his chat with Esquire, Brad Pitt put it like this: 'There's a lot of pushback against AI, but AI is going to be the very thing that, if used as a tool, is going to help these mid-budget films, forty- to ninety-million-dollar budgeted films, get made.'
Here’s the reality Pitt’s talking about: film budgets often go either massive (think Marvel numbers) or dirt cheap (think the kind of indie films only film students pretend to like). The forty to ninety million dollar territory — where a lot of the best studio dramas or thrillers used to live — has become a financial no-man’s land. With costs (locations, effects, all the usual suspects) on the up, these projects either get canned or come out looking compromised. Pitt’s answer? Use AI — sensibly — to take the sting out of the expense.
Pitt explained further: 'Who's saying, "I want to see this emotion from him", and then being able to mine through whatever AI provides and going, "More in this direction" and tailoring it in that way. So they could, but the final product might not be my choices and what I found and discovered in the thing.'
The Human Factor
It's not a total free pass for the machines, though. Pitt’s not exactly volunteering for a digital version of himself to star in the next sci-fi epic. He’s more interested in AI as a tool rather than an actor replacement. In his own experience, he listened to a song generated entirely by AI — and while he thought it was good enough, it fell flat on something crucial. The tune, he said, had a “repetitive” quality to it that betrayed its algorithmic origins. He believes a real human voice still wins when it comes to genuine emotion.
To hammer home the irreplaceable touch of humans, Pitt described a recent Paris gig where Flea and Thom Yorke performed Marvin Gaye with a jazz band. The performance, he said, was “off the charts, full of joy” — something you just don’t get from an app, however clever the code.