Spike Jonze's Gucci movie The Tiger is quite something both as a film and piece of branding. With strong acting from an ensemble cast including Demi Moore, Ed Norton, and Elliot Page, it weaves contemporary themes and a White Lotus-like atmosphere with sleek cinematography and bold brand storytelling and aesthetics.
The 30-minute film is a lavish introduction to new creative director Demna's debut collection for the Italian fashion house while providing some laughs with satirical commentary on luxury consumption in an alternate reality where the Gucci family controls California. What it's not is an AI-generated movie even if it does shows how AI art can passably be used in traditional filmmaking.
A lot is being made about how Jonze opted to use AI-video generation for The Tiger. The sections above were generated for the film by Sam Finn Studio, who received a credit for AI art.
AI enthusiasts are delighted to see such an esteemed filmmaker embracing the tech. "Spike Jonze directing AI art feels like watching Picasso discover Photoshop,” one person wrote on X.
Sure, it's not insignificant when the director of Being John Malkovich makes use of AI. But this small section of The Tiger is hardly a ringing endorsement of wholescale AI filmmaking (see the whole film below).
AI is used for visual effects in a very specific sequence where the intention was to create a surreal, confusing and disjointed feeling. For this, the nightmarish morphing of AI video generation makes some sense. The sequence could have been better if the film had had enough budget for it to be done in another way, but, given the context, it's passable and doesn't detract from the movie.
This is not generating a movie using prompts like Lucasfilm's terrible AI Star Wars short. The film is well directed, acted and filmed, and the AI sequence makes sense in a very specific context (and looks better than the attempt to make Salvador Dalí's Giraffes on Horseback Salad with AI).
This kind of hybrid work is where generative AI can be interesting in fimmaking today rather than for generating scenes that can be produced easily and a lot better without it. Even still, I have a feeling the look of that sequence is going to date faster than Denma's La Famiglia collection.
For more AI developments, see the launch of the Sora social media app and Elon Musk's AI video game plans.
