AI is Frankenstein’s monster in a very real sense and what you’re about to see got phones ringing throughout the Hollywood Hills and Malibu aeries of top executives for days now. A new generation of AI is not *slop* at all, it looks and sounds pretty sophisticated. And so that sets the stage for bootlegged features with stars and multiple creatives not making a penny. Take a look.
This was a 2 line prompt in seedance 2. If the hollywood is cooked guys are right maybe the hollywood is cooked guys are cooked too idk. pic.twitter.com/dNTyLUIwAV
— Ruairi Robinson (@RuairiRobinson) February 11, 2026
Robinson is an Irish film director. The New York Times tell us that
The widely circulated video was created by the Irish director Ruairi Robinson using Seedance 2.0, a powerful artificial intelligence video generation tool owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance. It had plenty of the bells and whistles of a big-budget Hollywood film: sweeping camera angles, stunt choreography, crisp sound effects and haunting music.
With a two-sentence prompt and the click of a button, Seedance had produced a stunningly realistic result that was a drastic improvement over previously generated artificial intelligence videos, often shoddy clips known as A.I. slop. This video was so convincing that it drew near immediate condemnation from some of Hollywood’s top organizations and companies.
Rhett Reese, a scriptwriter known for his “Deadpool” films, said in an interview that the Cruise-Pitt video had sent a “cold shiver” up his spine.
“For all of us who work in the industry and devoted our careers and lives to it, I just think it’s nothing short of terrifying,” he said. “I could just see it costing jobs all over the place.”
ByteDance released Seedance 2.0 last week, nearly two months after a previous version had failed to prompt much anger. A news release from the company praised the updated tool’s “physical accuracy, realism and controllability,” which it said was suitable for the needs of “professional-grade creative scenarios.”
“The creation process,” the release went on, “is more natural and efficient, allowing users to control their creations like a true ‘director.’”
Users promptly flocked to the platform to spin up their own content. An alternate ending to “Game of Thrones” went viral, as did a video of the notoriously beefing rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake burying the hatchet on “The Tonight Show,” and one of Samara Morgan, the vengeful girl in “The Ring” horror films, emerging from an old television set to pet a cat.
Robinson himself posted additional videos, including of Pitt and Cruise battling a robot, and of Pitt sparring with a sword-wielding “zombie ninja.”
The first time I heard Hollywood’s death predicted was in the 1970’s when studying film in college. Then I learned that in the 1950’s, with the advent of television, Hollywood’s death had been predicted. Since then Hollywood’s demise is a regularly predicted event, for any number of technological or financial reasons. Hollywood is dead. Long live Hollywood.
If this really is the future Hollywood will embrace it.
It’s cheaper.
The one problem is that contemporary film stars generally OWN all the rights to their own images and likenesses. And the courts have upheld this. Back in the early 90s, Amy Grant sued Marvel Comics over her likeness being used on the cover of an issue of “Dr Strange” (her claim was based on defamation issues) and the New Kids on the Block’s management sued an independent publisher over an unauthorized comic book biography of the group (that was based on trademark infringement, concerning the group’s logo) and the same publisher had to actually destroy all the copies it had produced of another unauthorized biography of a hard rock band again (again, trademark infringement because the band’s management had a licensing deal with some memorabilia franchise and the comic was seen as breaking the licensing deal even though neither the band nor its management had any input into the comic). Around this same time, images of a number of legendary entertainers were starting to be included via early CGI in commercials featuring images of them from the 1930s to the 1950s (and a few cases, even more recent). For dead celebrities, there wasn’t really much that could be done as the estates had generally approved the use but some celebrities who were still living had turned down the agencies who simply went to the studios who owned the films and got the use that way. A few celebrities went to court and the courts agreed that the entertainer needed to have final approval of their likenesses being used (the estates of dead celebrities–such as Elvis’s–typically pounced on any unauthorized usage but living celebrities didn’t have the same level of protection of their own likenesses).
Since then, most celebrities have made sure their contracts included “likeness protection” (typically only satire/parody can “use” their likenesses without their approval–like “South Park” has done with so many celebrities from Barbra Streisand to Tom Cruise to Sarah Jessica Parker) so I can see some of the more “protective” celebrities going to court to stop the AI usage. (Just wait till AI gets used for *porn* and see how quick the studios and stars intervene.)