Tom Cruise Has a Message for Hollywood as AI Moves Into Filmmaking
Tom Cruise says AI will become part of Hollywood but believes audiences will continue wanting real performances, creativity and cinema.
Tom Cruise believes artificial intelligence will inevitably become part of Hollywood’s future, but he is far less convinced that audiences will ever stop wanting films made by people.
The Mission: Impossible star tackled the subject during BAFTA’s Life in Pictures event in London on September 21. Asked how AI could affect filmmaking, Tom spent around six minutes discussing technology, filmmaking skills and why he remains optimistic about cinema. His response reportedly drew applause from the audience.
“There is nothing like human,” he said.
Tom wasn’t arguing that Hollywood could simply ignore AI. He acknowledged that the technology is coming and will increasingly become part of filmmaking, but said audiences still “want to see real things” and encouraged people working creatively to “keep creating.”
Tom’s position is particularly interesting because technology has always played a major role in his films. The Mission: Impossible franchise has combined advanced visual effects with the actor’s determination to perform spectacular physical stunts for real, while its final two instalments placed a powerful fictional artificial intelligence known as the Entity at the centre of the story.
He also connected the AI debate with something he has championed for years: watching films in cinemas.
Tom said he has nothing against streaming, but considers seeing a film theatrically to be a different art form. He pointed towards strong cinema attendance and younger audiences going to theatres as evidence that people continue to want shared experiences rather than entertainment becoming entirely individual and digital.
His comments come as he prepares for Digger, his new film directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and co-starring Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed and John Goodman.
For Tom, AI becoming more powerful does not appear to mean choosing between technology and people. His argument is that filmmaking will continue changing, as it always has, while the human creativity behind it remains something audiences actively seek out.
