“We deeply respect and value the work of poster artists,” Hammer Films tells us in the wake of its seemingly AI-generated artwork for the forthcoming horror, Ithaqua.
Earlier this week (12th February) we brought you the welcome news that the British production company Hammer Films is currently working on a new monster movie called Ithaqua. The less cheery part of the story, however, was that the poster released as part of that announcement appeared to have been generated using AI.
As we wrote at the time, we contacted Hammer Films to ask for its response over the issue, and we’ve since received an official response.
Although the statement doesn’t mention the term ‘AI’ anywhere in it, it describes the poster as a “placeholder” and adds that “we plan to incorporate the visuals from filming into our human created official “Hammer presents” film poster art, which will soon be released to replace this placeholder.”
That the next poster will be ‘human created’ backs up our suspicion that the previous piece of artwork was indeed created by some form of generative software.
In any case, here’s Hammer Films’ official response in full:
We appreciate the enthusiasm and feedback from our community surrounding our initial “in production” announcement poster for Ithaqua. This preliminary poster art design was released as a tease to give fans an early glimpse of what’s to come.
As production is currently underway, we plan to incorporate the visuals from filming into our human created official “Hammer presents” film poster art, which will soon be released to replace this placeholder.
We deeply respect and value the work of poster artists and remain committed to supporting artistic excellence across all mediums. Our goal has always been to create compelling visual storytelling, and we believe that our ongoing collaborations with talented poster artists honour the iconic legacy of Hammer film poster design.
As a new Hammer Film, Ithaqua will be packed with classic Hammer elements including prosthetics and practical effects.
Thank you for your passion and engagement – we look forward to sharing the new poster artwork with you soon.
Ithaqua is currently filming in Canada, and stars Luke Hemsworth, Kevin Durand, Craig Lauzon and Michael Pitt. Directed and co-written by Casey Walker, it’s set in the 1800s and sees a remote, snowbound outpost attacked by a mysterious creature based on indigenous folklore.
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We’ll bring you more on Ithaqua – and hopefully, a poster painted by real artists – as we get it.
