AI Movie ‘Gods Don’t Give Gifts’ Gets Serious with AI-Generated Grimes Cameo, Times Square Marketing Push, Oscar Screenings

When we first wrote about the coming release of “Gods Don’t Give Gifts,” the first fully AI-generated feature film being self-distributed into movie theaters in the U.S., it would’ve been easy to write the whole thing off as a stunt. Coming from YouTuber Gossip Goblin, who has an impressive and loyal following, “Gods Don’t Give Gifts” started earning comps from the press (and from the producers themselves) to the success Markiplier found when he self-released his film “Iron Lung” and made $50 million worldwide in the process. Would that success translate for an AI movie? A recent example from China suggests that may not be the case. It’s clear though the team behind “Gods Don’t Give Gifts” is treating this like a real project that needs to be seen in theaters and is worthy of serious critical consideration, and they’re doing that with real marketing dollars behind its theatrical push. Today, Gossip Goblin announced that pop star Grimes is set to make a cameo in his film “Gods Don’t Give Gifts,” as is YouTuber Mike Majlak, and their involvement is being revealed via a massive Times Square ad campaign that is also launching today, all ahead of the film’s release next month on December 4. Gossip Goblin is even launching a contest for people to use AI to create their own short films within the universe of “Gods Don’t Give Gifts” that can net the winning creator $15,000. “Gods Don’t Give Gifts” also sparked some headlines in the last few months with the news that the producers are plotting an Oscar campaign for Best Animated Feature. Turns out some FYC screenings have already started and a digital campaign begins at the end of November. All of the above suggests some real belief in the project, and with a collective 16 million views of the trailer thus far, they have reason to believe. “We’ve been heartened already by the reaction,” producer Edward Saatchi of Fable Studios said in a statement. “One Oscar-Nominated animated film director compared ‘Gods Don’t Give Gifts’ after seeing it to ‘2001,’ and we’ve had great feedback from Pixar folks (part of Fable’s team is ex-Pixar and we hugely respect their work).” Zack London, the man behind the moniker Gossip Goblin, in speaking with IndieWire ahead of the announcement, said he’s “fully cognizant” of the controversy around putting a movie made with AI into theaters, and he acknowledges that all of this is “a big, unproven hypothesis.” But he says it would be “disingenuous to write it all off” as just an AI movie or not a real project. Getting screens is easy, but the real battle is making people believe there are actually humans behind this movie, even if the images are all generated by AI. Roughly 30 to 35 people are credited in the making of “Gods Don’t Give Gifts,” and a behind-the-scenes documentary that is also in the works is aimed to humanize the process of making the movie. It includes interviews with the film’s composer and voice actors and shows its Foley guy doing real post-production work. Even the act of getting a real person like Grimes in the film — whose image is generated to resemble her but who does real voice acting — required an elaborate process of photo mashing atop existing character design to fit her into the movie, as well as contacting the model makers themselves to remove built-in censors for generating images of a public figure’s likeness. On one hand, “Gods Don’t Give Gifts” can be viewed as a scrappy indie made by a team of creatives, not just a sole prompter working alone, making a movie that wouldn’t exist otherwise. On the other hand, many would argue that the visuals on display would normally require a team of thousands to bring to life along with millions of dollars. Depending on where you fall on that spectrum may determine whether you also buy a ticket to see it. But London and Saatchi have grander ambitions with “Gods Don’t Give Gifts” and AI filmmaking beyond just what it can do at the box office. Saatchi says that for as many great CG animated films have been released in the last 30 years since “Toy Story” first hit theaters, they’ve arguably all looked similar and been made with the same techniques. He views “Gods Don’t Give Gifts” as the next “Toy Story” moment in animation, with a movie that aims to look psychedelic and otherworldly, something that looks unique and looks like it could only be the product of AI generative models. Other films may use AI to create something cheaply that looks like a Pixar movie, but London wanted to make something that looked like nothing else. “Pixar set the look for animated films in the ’90s — they didn’t use technology to more cheaply make a film that looked like ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ they created a radically new aesthetic with ‘Toy Story,'” Saatchi said. “That’s what ‘Gods Don’t Give Gifts’ represents: a wild new aesthetic for animated films that will define much of animated, actor-voiced films in the coming decades. This is that ‘Toy Story’ moment for our generation — a radical departure for animated films — you only need to see Grimes’ brilliant performance in the film to understand how much things are about to change for animated movies. And we hope the Academy will recognize that a film that is seminal (the first AI film), wildly technically novel and most importantly good deserves a nomination.”