Animals, Ben Affleck’s new directorial effort for Netflix, has been a navigable challenge for the 54-year-old filmmaker. First, he lost best buddy Matt Damon as the lead in the film as mayoral candidate Mark Kimball (blame The Odyssey), compelling Affleck to take over the role. That choice complicated initial talks to cast Jennifer Garner, Affleck’s ex-wife, who’d have played Kimball’s wife, before Kerry Washington ultimately joined the cast. Knowing when to adapt to avoid any irksome “baggage” for an expensive film production is a thing that mature adults do.
Now, instead of us talking about how mature, nimble, and versatile Ben Affleck continues to be as a director/actor/prodcuer triple-threat, Affleck has lobbed the loaded subject of AI into the production like a live grenade, telling Bloomberg that he’s used the generative tool “for lots of things” in the film (per The Hollywood Reporter), and just for funsies, he’s being really cagey about the extent of its use in his film. “I’m a little bit hesitant to point out what they are—or even talk about it—because in my business, we’re trying to foster the illusion of reality, right?” he told Bloomberg‘s Lucas Shaw during the media company’s annual Screentime summit. “It’s sort of like if you went to a magic show and the magician walked out and said, ‘Just before I start, I want you to know there’s another bunny under here. [And] this guy’s a plant.’ You know, it’s sort of ruined, right? But yes, we did use it, and in fact, I thought it was a good example (of how to use AI ethically) because it’s a very human movie.”
Setting aside the fun visuals of magician Ben Affleck hiding a bunny in his top hat, of course he would extol his own “ethical” AI use, as Netflix acquired his artificial-intelligence startup InterPositive for a cool $587 million in March, and of course he would use InterPositive’s AI tech in his latest movie for Netflix, because why would he not do those things as a successful businessman and also director? “It’s another form of computing,” he said, “a technological advancement that’s really in keeping with the longstanding series of technological improvements we’ve made in the film and television business.”
The ethical credo Affleck has apparently adhered to in the production of his streamer-boosting movie, per his official Netflix release in March: No images via prompts, no human-replacing trickery, just post-production work designed to make the job easier that a well-trained employee might otherwise be willing to do for things like money and benefits. “The results of this foundational work were deliberately smaller datasets and models focused on filmmaking techniques—rather than performances—creating tools that artists can use, control, and benefit from,” Affleck wrote. “Intensive research and development led to our first model, trained to understand visual logic and editorial consistency, while preserving cinematic rules under real-world production challenges such as missing shots, background replacements, or incorrect lighting. We also built in restraints to protect creative intent, so the tools are designed for responsible exploration while keeping creative decisions in the hands of artists—and ensuring that the benefits of this technology flow directly back to the story they’re trying to tell.”
Perhaps all this AI use is clouding former Batman Mr. Affleck’s memory of Bat-history. Recall the 2005 DC event Infinite Crisis, in which the Dark Knight employed an artificial intelligence named “Brother Eye” to surveil metahuman activity on Earth instead of working with the living, breathing members of the Justice League. “Brother Eye” was later taken over by even more unscrupulous individuals like a renegade Maxwell Lord, who used the AI to launch an army of murderous manhunter robots called OMACs, which was a whole damn mess. Read your book, Affleck!
Animals starts streaming exclusively on Netflix on October 9.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.