Actress Dakota Johnson is railing at Hollywood over its growing fascination with and reliance on artificial intelligence and its penchant for making movies “by committee,” as her latest superhero film suffers the barbs of critics and fails at the box office.
Johnson’s new Marvel Comics-based Spider-Man film for Sony is one of the lowest-earning comic book film in years. On its first two days in theaters, it didn’t even break a $10 million box office take, which is worse than dismal for a $150 million movie. And after a week in theaters, it had still not even earned $30 million. And weeks after its release, it still hasn’t breached the $100 million mark, meaning this film is a net loser for Sony.
The box office take makes Johnson’s Madame Web the worst performing superhero movie of the modern age, and the whole experience has soured Johnson on superhero movies, and unsurprisingly so.
In an interview with the Bustle, Johnson said that she will likely never do a fantasy movie like that again.
“It was definitely an experience for me to make that movie,” Johnson told Bustle. “I had never done anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again, because I don’t make sense in that world.”
“But it was a real learning experience, and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand,” she said.
Dakota Johnson at the world premiere of “Madame Web” held at Regency Village Theatre on February 12, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images)
Perhaps more interestingly, though, was the star’s comments about how Hollywood makes movies these days, and her criticism of AI as inherently anti-art.
“It’s so hard to get movies made, and in these big movies that get made — and it’s even starting to happen with the little ones, which is what’s really freaking me out — decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee,” Johnson explained.
“Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms,” she said warming to her criticism about computer-generated artificial intelligence.
“My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those,” Johnson insisted.
AI, is certainly being explored by the film industry, but so far, entire films have not yet been manufactured by AI and humans have decidedly still hand their hands on the tiller.
But many — especially actors — feel it is only a matter of time.
Many directors have also bashed the use of AI for film making.
For one, Christopher Nolan, the man behind 2023’s hit film, Oppenheimer, warned about AI and insisted that people need to be standing by to “hold AI accountable.”
Director James Cameron, who is famous for his tech-dystopia in the Terminator films, has also warned about the development of AI, as has Beetlejuice director Tim Burton, Godfather creator Francis Ford Coppola, and actor Nicolas Cage.
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