SerpApi.Org
AI is making its way into more and more spaces within our culture, and now it's finding its way into the movie theater.
Director Zack London, better known as the face of the YouTube and generative AI filmmaking team Gossip Goblin, has made his first feature-length film generated entirely by artificial intelligence, and he's borrowing an approach from fellow YouTube creator Markiplier by self-releasing his film into theaters.
Gossip Goblin's "Gods Don't Give Gifts" will be released in limited theaters across the U.S. on October 30. Today on July 22 Gossip Goblin released a preview short film of the movie called "Pomegranate," which you can find on the Gossip Goblin YouTube page.
"Gods Don't Give Gifts" is a sci-fi, horror-tinged film about what London calls the "Second Cycle of Humanity," where transhumanism has accelerated to the point that humanity looks very different. In this future, humans have figured out ways to transmit consciousness and effectively become immortal with hybrid human and robotic figures, but the film explores the psychological consequences of being more physically enabled by technology and the dangerous ways we still chase our basest human desires.
"The core of ‘Gods Don't Give Gifts' is really about what happens to ordinary human hungers and instincts when the physical limits around humanity starts to disappear," London said in a statement. "The four stories in ‘Gods Don't Give Gifts' live inside that unease. They follow people using strange tools to satisfy very primal needs, exploring the strange interplay and growing disconnect between the body and the mind. You might say the stories are dystopian, but the world doesn't end in them; there isn't an apocalyptic turning point, or some dramatic collapse. Despite the seeming horror of it all, the world just bumbles onwards. The systems and markets and technologies all work as intended, and humans generally seem to prosper as a whole - its just that their humanity, at least as we know it, is fading towards extinction."
All of it is an extension of the many shorts and story worlds Gossip Goblin have built up over the years, particularly with the collection of shorts that compose London's "13 Cycles of Humanity." So the IP and the story of the film should be right at home to the over 1.4 million followers Gossip Goblin has amassed each on YouTube and Instagram, as well as the over billion views their videos have reached.
Setting aside the AI, the film's theatrical release is trying to tap into the wave of success that has followed YouTubers this year who have seen enormous and surprise box office, starting first with Markiplier's "Iron Lung," which made $50 million worldwide through a largely independent release strategy, as well as "Obsession" and "Backrooms," which have each made hundreds of millions worldwide coming from debut filmmakers who cut their teeth making videos on YouTube.
But while Gossip Goblin is not the first to make an entire feature with AI, he can claim to be the first to experiment with narrative storytelling via generative AI video tools, and he's become one of the most influential names in the AI space today. His films are AI generated, but "Gods Don't Give Gifts" was made across two months with a team of 10 artists all working on it, and each of his videos has a distinct look that has become synonymous with Gossip Goblin's brand. London strives for AI images that go beyond realistic fidelity and aim to be fantastical, kaleidoscopic, and strange in a way that AI excels at. He also uses real voice actors dubbing in with the characters rather than synthetic AI dialogue.
By releasing it in theaters, the film's co-producer Edward Saatchi through AI studio Fable ultimately wants to make something that's lasting. Though AI videos themselves have advanced significantly within the last few years, the presentation of them has still largely been via shorts at festivals or online, and the cultural cache and awareness that goes with releasing an AI movie into theaters is exactly what Saatchi is chasing in order to make this one stick.
"The most important thing to us is to work on projects that will stand the test of time," Saatchi said. "This film is a masterpiece, not a demonstration of where the technology is, but a brilliantly written and paced story that will move audiences. It is beautiful and exciting but deals in difficult themes around desire, the passage of time and the choices people make. This is a movie - and we're so excited for people to see it on the big screen."
Saatchi is also pushing forward as part of the film's release a contest for fans of Gossip Goblin universe to create their own AI short films that exist within the larger story universe, and the best film will receive a $15,000 prize. Saatchi is also the founder of the AI streaming platform Showrunner that is built on the collaboration between creators and fans who are then given the power to use AI to remix and make their own episodes of animated series that can then live on the platform alongside the originals.
"We are at an incredible moment where ‘internet IP' and a generation of YouTube filmmakers are on the verge of taking over Hollywood - this is the ‘Easy Riders,' ‘Raging Bulls' moment for the internet generation," Saatchi said. "The tired superhero films of today, like the tired giant musicals of the late '60s, are being replaced by bootstrapped, low-budget YouTube filmmakers. What Zack has built here is a kind of ‘THX 1138' - an indie science fiction first film stretching a small budget that gives a sign of things to come from a great filmmaker."
