Director Danny Boyle confirmed he used artificial intelligence to generate imagery in his new film Ink, a drama about the early years of Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid The Sun.
"There's about 30 seconds of it in our movie, where we animate a couple of old photographs, which you'll have seen online the way that it does that — that you can bring old photographs to life. And that's the kind of way we use it," Boyle told Vanity Fair in a video interview recorded at the Telluride Film Festival.
The production also used AI to create imagery of mice. Boyle connected the decision to an incident from early in his career. He said he faced criticism from PETA after using real chimpanzees in the opening sequence of his 2002 zombie film 28 Days Later. "And they wrote to me and said, 'You must never do that again.' And I haven't. Ever since, I've tried to use CG, as they call it, animals. But AI is very, very good at creating animals. We got some mice in this one that run around 'The Sun' newsroom," Boyle said.
On his broader view of the technology, Boyle was measured. "My opinion of (AI) is that it's a very useful tool in many ways, provided you use it respectfully and provided you pay actors if you're going to replace them with some kind of AI embodiment or something like that — so just like with any animation project, or just as part of the VFX toolbox," he said.
Ink stars Jack O'Connell, Claire Foy and Guy Pearce as Murdoch. The film is adapted from a play by James Graham and recounts how the tabloid tactics of The Sun came to reshape British journalism. Boyle won his Academy Award for Slumdog Milliamme in 2009 and has been working on Ink since acquiring the stage material.
The film entered the awards conversation this week with premieres at both Venice and Telluride. According to The Wrap, it received a warm reception at its Venice screening along with positive reviews. Deadline noted it as part of a Telluride lineup that also included films by Mike Leigh, Martin McDonagh and Jesse Eisenberg, among others.
AI use in film has become a recurring flashpoint in the industry. Earlier this year, A24's The Brutalist was reported to have used AI to alter Hungarian-language dialogue. Director Brady Corbet confirmed that use, though unsourced rumors about other departments complicated the conversation around the film and its awards campaign. The Brutalist went on to receive multiple Oscar nominations.
Netflix is distributing Ink, with a theatrical release set for December 11 and a streaming launch on January 8.
