Eli Roth has confirmed that generative AI was used during the making of his new horror film, “Ice Cream Man.”
The “Hostel” filmmaker was asked in a recent interview about a sequence in his new movie that features Fleischer Studios-style animation, which helps entrance child victims and turn them into killers. Initially, Roth told Polygon that the animation in question was done by himself and a team of animators.
“I have an animation background and I drew it,” he initially said. “I worked with an animation team and I wanted it to look and feel like — there’s an old Mickey Mouse cartoon where he goes to a haunted house and there’s brooms and dancing skeletons and this kind of flowing dancing stuff and the jittery style of the animation. So I drew the loop cycles and the styles.”
“Then I had some animators help kind of make it a little more fluid, and I worked with an artist to give it a bit of an old-timey jittery feel,” Roth continued. “But I sat there and I drew out the frames that I wanted, and I tried to match the style of the 1920s haunted Mickey Mouse cartoons.”
Speculation, however, began to swirl in recent days when it was revealed that the “Ice Cream Man” credits include Dark Half, an AI VFX firm. When asked for clarification, Roth then told Polygon in a separate statement that he “misspoke” originally and confirmed the use of AI in the film.
“I misspoke. AI was used in a very small portion of a few scenes in the film,” he told the outlet. “It was an opportunity where technology and creativity came together to help bring my vision for the film to life.”
As of this writing, Roth has not revealed which scenes in the film include generative AI or how much, if any, of the Fleischer-inspired animation in question was created using artificial intelligence.
Roth’s comments come at a time when there continues to be heated debate among Hollywood creatives about AI’s place in filmmaking. While some directors, like Roth, seem open to dabbling with the technology, others, such as “Frankenstein” filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, have repeatedly sworn AI off.
“Ice Cream Man” opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, Aug. 7.
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