Pete Davidson and Casey Affleck Film to Use AI to ‘Adjust Performances,’ Create Set Locations

An upcoming movie by director Doug Liman and set to star Pete Davidson and Casey Affleck has published a notice that artificial intelligence will be used to “adjust” actor performances and to create set locations and backgrounds.

The film, Killing Satoshi, will follow the story of an investigative reporter who jumps into the secretive world of cryptocurrency and seeks to uncover the real identity of Bitcoin’s mysterious founder, who is only known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

Producers have put out a casting call for actors but the notice revealed some key information about how the movie will be made, Variety reported.

The notice informs potential cast members that the producers are reserving the right to “change, add to, take from, translate, reformat or reprocess” the work of those they hire as actors and that actors might have their performances changed with “generative artificial intelligence (GAI) and/or machine learning technologies.”

However, producers also say that AI will not be used to completely recreate an actor’s likeness and voice. It will only be used to “tweak” performances with minor adjustments.

“They won’t be made to say anything they didn’t say but let’s say the way they said it in conjunction with the movement doesn’t look perfect, you wouldn’t need to reshoot it. We’d just use AI to make it look better,” a source on the film told the magazine.

“We were very cautious, sensitive and overly protective of our actors to make sure we only use performance capture AI which means that we will not have any AI-generated actors that do not exist. AI is a tool we’re using to make the filmmaking process more efficient while maintaining all department heads’ jobs, all actor jobs and hopefully helping to grow the industry in a positive way,” producer Ryan Kavanaugh told Variety.

While the casting notice said that actors may expect to be seen on screen alongside AI-created characters, producers have since said this is not true, that all actors in the film will be real humans, and that the claim in the casting call was added in by accident.

Finally, producers also say that the actors will be performing in front of a green screen and that AI will be used to create all set locations and backgrounds.

The casting notice came just ahead of a new raft of hyper-realistic videos by Chinese AI company Seedance 2.0 which has sent many in Hollywood to worry that AI will be replacing most humans in the entertainment industry. The company posted videos including one featuring a realistic fight scene between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

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