This occurred to me some weeks ago, BOND 26 may be the last time they actually cast a human actor as Bond.
This will not happen with BOND 26 - I think - and provided the next guy is successful (by whatever criteria we measure cinematic success from 2025 + X onwards) it may not happen for another decade. But at some point the studio bosses - or the AI minds replacing them - will look at the opportunities offered by AI imaging: nearly unlimited ways to adapt your product to markets, moods, fashions. They might even offer individual personalisation options for the home entertainment market down the line.
How would we feel about this? Provided we’re unfortunate enough to still witness it…
This may seem like a far out vision, but current technology and advances in imaging models suggest such a development is entirely within the realm of the possible and a likely scenario within the next decade. Provided studios find ways to monetise these products (likely not in physical theatres for much longer).
The pros for such a development are more or less obvious: you shape your star- your whole cast - according to market expectations, you invest in a single expensive imaging tool…and be done with it. No guaranteed paycheque upfront, no share of the box office, no tricky contracts with ins and outs and no risk your star vomits over some politician or picks a fight with paparazzi. Yes, you’re effectively selling an ultra expensive animé but who cares? It’s what most of the superhero films have been for decades already; they’d just be cutting out the bit with the actual human faces. Plus, you even cut out the whiny detractors complaining about ‘X is not Bond’ and ‘Bond’s too woke’ - just offer them the option to pin their own mugs on the template and what you hear is contented silence on that front.
All this may sound like a vision from hell. But it’s also a viable business model we can be sure will be explored at some point.
Evidently, that wouldn’t be ‘my Bond’ any more. Or my idea of cinema. But I hardly matter in the context of an emerging individual entertainment experience of the 2030s and beyond. As we’ve already seen, traditional cinema struggles to make its vehicles work. So studios, Amazon as well as every other, have to adapt and find ways to make money.
And animated features are the big box office winners already. Real human beings and their emotional multiverse aren’t interesting to a majority anymore anyway. So, yes, AI is the way Amazon especially will go.
My opinion? AI is death for the arts and in the maybe not so long at all run for humanity.
Of course, most people do not care. Even if AI, as it was reported today, lies most of the time with its answers. Still, people increasingly base their life decisions on their questions to ChatGBT.
That’s perfectly possible - though I think they soon will not even bother any longer with physical copies but put the stuff on their streaming platform instead. With different levels of access and the most interesting options costing premium. At a guess I expect there’s already an army of lawyers proving beyond reasonable doubt every human forfeits all personal rights on their physical appearance and voice once they are dead.
And since we’re technically all either not born or no longer alive for most of the time these personal rights are at best a hitch in the order of things and mustn’t be allowed to stand in the way of monetisation. You read it here first…
Chanel four had this presenter for a programme about A.I. and at the end the viewer was told that she was also A.I. Nobody would have noticed, but if this is the way to go…..?
It doesn’t matter how far the studio goes in order to appease every possible complaint that they could think that someone might have, there will still be someone complaining about whatever product they put out.
I don’t think we’ll ever see a fully AI Bond film at any point. Will they end up dabbling in it around the edges? Possibly, perhaps even probably at some point, although I think we’re still a good way away from that happening still. Remove any and all human element from a film and what you’re left with is a cartoon. And a cartoon that has been fully developed by a computer at that. There might be an audience for that, sure, but that audience will be much smaller than one might think.
Would audiences even care? It’s not as if they’re obliged to when the technology itself has turned commonplace. Judging by how easily cgi technology was accepted once Pixar showed what it can do with this tool - while there were of course critics, always will be - it’s not a given people will refuse these ‘cartoons’. Provided they entertain them.
I’m not talking about cranky old geezers like us; we’re not the future of any entertainment that’s not retirement home bingo. I’m thinking about that part of the populace that’s already using this technology on a daily basis, either in their jobs or their own Sora content. Why would they refuse it? For the kids now 10 or 12 years old there’s no difference between an animated Pixar film or a live action superhero one. They will think different about a wholly AI generated flick because…why?
Given that it’s slightly hard to believe that a human wrote much if any of the written Bond of the last twenty years or so, it may be a bit precious to decry the inevitable onset of AI into the films. Presumably quicker to produce if it’s AI’d. Doubtless easier to spew out pastiche “period” Bond. They’re going to do it, and I for one welcome my Skynet overlord, especially when it reads this.
