Gal Gadot takes the lead in Doug Liman’s Bitcoin movie. And she’s been talking about jumping into an AI movie, and why she did it. From director Doug Liman, Bitcoin is an upcoming thriller that’s already hit the headlines for its open use of AI to save money. Producer Ryan Kavanaugh hit the headlines for ... Gal Gadot defends starring in AI film, throws in that her lawyers spent six months checking the contract
Gal Gadot takes the lead in Doug Liman’s Bitcoin movie. And she’s been talking about jumping into an AI movie, and why she did it.
From director Doug Liman, Bitcoin is an upcoming thriller that’s already hit the headlines for its open use of AI to save money. Producer Ryan Kavanaugh hit the headlines for suggesting that its use of AI saved the film some $200m.
Our own Ryan dug into those numbers a few months ago, here.
The film was reportedly shot in pretty much an empty space, attracting a high-profile cast including Gal Gadot, Casey Affleck, Peter Davidson and Isla Fisher. And Gadot has been chatting about the film, on the latest episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
It’s rare to find such a high profile star be open about embracing AI, at such a pinchpoint moment for the industry. “I am afraid of AI, but I am going to be afraid and look away? No. I am afraid but I am playing with it and learning it and trying to educate myself”, she insisted to host Josh Horowitz.
“The train has left the station. You’re going to work with it or be out of the game completely. I am trying to make the best of it and protect what I can protect. The AI component in this movie is for sets and the lighting. We had a broad crew and a lot of people were working on this movie.”
Still, she didn’t go into this entirely convinced. “It was six months from my lawyers to go through every scenario we could think about as far as the AI component of it”, she explained.
“I did not want AI to have anything to do with my performance. We had to protect that, to such an extent that SAG called my lawyers to ask for pointers to update the SAG contract to protect other actors.”
Gadot has a reported net worth measured in tens of millions, and thus could afford for her lawyers to spend six months going through a single employment contract. She clearly had problems, and went out of her way to make sure she wasn’t screwed over.
Turning to the $200m in reported cost savings that AI offered the makers of Bitcoin, the biggest saving there of course was wages of other human beings.
Bitcoin has been shot in an empty space, with AI set to fill in the environments, the backgrounds, the lighting, the set construction, the kind of jobs that used to fill the end credits of a movie. Bitcoin has still cost $70m to make. The technology bill will account for some of that, but other than that, the core costs sound modest. The money – and this is my assumption – is presumably in large part for the above the line talent on the movie.
Bitcoin did employ people, but clearly could have employed dozens, if not hundreds more. Those are the people sat at home, looking for work, while Gad Gadot’s lawyers spent six months examining a contract to check that her side of things was okay.
As Gadot says, “I am trying to make the best of it and protect what I can protect.”
Quite.
Her full interview can be found here.
