Lionsgate has had a horrible 2024 and it’s not getting any better.
Between their horrible releases and terrible PR moves, Lionsgate continues to have this budding relationship with AI art. As an artist myself, I do hate AI art. In a market that is already oversaturated, the cheap alternative of AI art may be appealing, but 10 out of 10 times, the art is stolen from another artist and it never looks quite right. So it’s stealing from artists and it’s making the stolen art uglier. While I think some people get a little witch hunty when accusing others of using AI art, especially when these same people screaming about it will use AI to participate in a trend on Instagram or Tiktok, I understand the root of the sentiment. It’s an unpopular move to use AI art, and any celebrity or influencer that gets called out for using it usually deletes the post and apologizes. It’s an easy mistake to make, we’re all human, and these are usually artists who want to support artists and just made an oopsie.
However Lionsgate doesn’t care and actively wants to hurt artists. Bold move for a movie studio.
In their most recent blunder, Lionsgate has partnered with an AI company that will essentially eliminate story board artists. The deal with Runway, the AI company, is meant to take out storyboard artists and will, in theory, make filmmakers more efficient as a result. This is a boneheaded move after they were already caught using AI this year during when they made fake reviews for Megalopolis ads.
The only thing I hate then the AI art witch hunters is AI art itself, and both are rooted in taking away art from artists which is the whole problem. I do not understand how or why we live in a society where humans are using AI to squeeze out human beings from areas where humanity is necessary. Art comes from the human experience — no matter how much AI observes and notes the lives of human beings, it will never capture why something matters or how it impacted a human being because it doesn’t have the capacity to do so. To take away storyboard artists is to take away people who are essential in building something that will connect the film with other people. Lionsgate choosing to do this, especially after they’ve been called out for using AI so recently, shows they actively do not care about the people they are making movies about or making movies for — and they certainly do not care about the people making the films.
Lionsgate has actively stated they want the work to be easy, not good, and the only solace I have is that no one will eat it up. People will say they like it, but those people are contrarians who need to feel special so they shit on the popular opinion because it makes them feel good. But deep down, they’ll miss real art. They will miss what makes things special, they will crave that human touch that resonates with our souls when we watch movies. AI is soulless not to be mean but because it literally is, it has no soul. Taking art to give to machines is the true commodification of art and it’s frankly disgusting. Art is not meant to be consumed, but to resonate, to provoke, and to linger. Art shapes us, it doesn’t create us. Art is a reflection of us, not a building block or food or anything that is meant to do anything but inspire.
Art is a luxury and it’s high time we remember that. Artists will always be around, but art is a luxury that we access by being authentic and sharing our stories with other people. Lionsgate will turn it’s back on people to pursue the almighty dollar, and by doing that it hands the creative freedom back to us to make the things people want to see. May we have another renaissance. Use the tools you have — YouTube, your friends, your phones, your laptops. Write scripts, make movies, laugh together — fuck it if no one else sees them, that’s not the point. The point is that art is you and you are art and that’s such a beautiful thing. Movies are meant to bring us together and make us reflect and give us hope because they are gifts from other artists, or rather, other people.