The moviegoers took up the cause against negligence and won.
After a flurry of online backlash, AMC Theaters said it would no longer allow AI-generated short films to be shown at its US venues, the latest example of growing resistance to AI’s encroachment on the arts.
The short film, Igor Alferov’s “Thanksgiving Day,” won first prize at the inaugural Frame Forward AI Animated Film Festival last week. Part of the prize included receiving two weeks of national exposure in theaters with several major chains, including AMC. Film advertisements will play during the pre-roll which begins twenty minutes before the feature film begins.
But news of the film’s distribution immediately sparked outrage online, much of it targeted at AMC, the world’s largest movie chain. After hollywood reporter contacted the companyIt issued a statement distancing itself from involvement in the decision to distribute the AI ​​film, and said it would effectively remove it from its theaters.
“This content is an initiative of ScreenVision Media, which manages pre-show advertising for many movie theater chains in the United States and runs in less than 30 percent of AMC’s U.S. locations,” AMC said in the statement. “AMC was not involved in the creation or initiative of the content and has informed Screenvision that AMC locations will not participate.”
“Thanksgiving Day” is described as following a bear and his sidekick the platypus as they “travel through the galaxy on a spaceship that resembles a flying dumpster.” That might be giving it too much credit: as it happens, the film also looks like garbage. It plays out in such a commercial-style montage I am watching its official upload on YouTube. You might be confused as to whether you just got distracted by a badly stitched-up trailer or the actual entire movie, because basically nothing happens.
It was reportedly created using Gemini 3.1, presumably to write the story, and Nano Banana Pro was used to create the imagery. Joel Roodman, head of Modern Uprising Studios, which co-organises the festival, saw it as a “masterclass in original storytelling”.
This wouldn’t be the first time that AI films have been allowed to grace the silver screen. A selection of them was shown at ten IMAX venues in August as part of AI startup Runway’s “AI Film Festival”. Did not impress many critics.
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