Movie audiences are turning away from AI-themed and AI-made entertainment after a string of box office flops and online backlash, reported WIRED.
What's happening?
Several AI-focused films have stumbled in the last 12 months.
The sequel to the hit movie M3GAN flopped with critics and ticket buyers. Mission: Impossible, The Final Reckoning (2025) fell short of its predecessor's numbers. Mercy, a 2026 thriller with Chris Pratt playing a detective judged by an AI bot, has been called "the worst movie of 2026" by one reviewer.
Off the big screen, director Darren Aronofsky executive-produced a web series called "On This Day…1776" in collaboration with Google. The brief YouTube clips use Google DeepMind to create visuals, with real actors on voiceovers.
"Certified slop," read a highly upvoted YouTube comment. "This is embarrassing," read another. In one clip, DeepMind misspelled "America," displaying it as "Aamereedd."
An Xfinity Super Bowl commercial from director Taika Waititi drew similar anger for digitally de-aging Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum from the Jurassic Park franchise. One X user wrote that the de-aging technology "just makes them look like melting wax figures."
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Why is AI in entertainment concerning?
The message from audiences is blunt: They don't want AI forced into their movies, and they don't want content made by machines.
As one Reddit user put it: "There's already more 'media content' available than we can consume. There's already hundreds of great TV shows released every month I don't have time to watch, dozens of new movies released every year I miss in theaters and thousand of old movies I haven't watched yet, not to mention books, video games, theater shows, music, and so on.
"So why would I choose to engage with [AI]-generated, meaningless slop when I already can't keep up with what humans create?"
AI tools and the data centers behind them are hungry for electricity. These facilities need millions of gallons of water for cooling. Some tech companies have restarted retired generating stations to keep up, which could push energy bills higher.
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What can I do about AI in entertainment?
Be picky about what you watch. If a movie, show, or ad was made with generative AI, skip it and watch something made by real people.
Support filmmakers and writers who are creating original work by buying tickets, streaming their projects, or sharing them with friends. Your viewing choices help determine what gets funded next.
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