When Samuel L Jackson predicted the future of cinema in 1999: “I do not approve of this”
Cinema is in a precarious place right now.
While there’s the whole issue of Hollywood continuously prioritising profit and huge blockbusters over genuinely interesting ideas (do we need another Marvel movie?), there’s also one of the biggest threats to human creativity to worry about: AI.
It’s a tool we’ve been warned about for decades, most famously through Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which emerged in 1968, and yet, these alarm bells have since been ignored, ringing out in the background as cinema has slowly been leeched of the beauty of human-made art and craft, instead relying on AI as a lazy form of assistance.
One of AI’s uses includes de-ageing actors, like when a bizarre younger version of Tom Hanks was displayed in Robert Zemeckis’ flop 2025 film, Here. Special effects makeup or casting younger actors is always an option, but instead, filmmakers are increasingly reaching for AI, which feels sloppy and, ultimately, dangerous.
Cinema needs to be human, and AI can take us to uncertain territory. Not only does it blur the lines between what’s real and what’s not to frightening effect, there are the human jobs it takes away, and the unethical nature at its very core. Samuel L Jackson has been sceptical of AI for a while, wherein his experience of having his whole body scanned for Star Wars: Episode One – The Phantom Menace shaped his hesitancy to welcome such invasive new technology.
The ease with which people can make AI deepfakes of celebrities that replicate their appearance and their voice with striking believability, then making them do and say things that they’ve never actually done or said, there’s certainly a lot to worry about.
Asked by Rolling Stone about the increasing concern surrounding AI and the dangers of its power to essentially resurrect celebrities once they’ve died, Jackson replied, “People just started worrying about that? I asked about that a long time ago. The first time I got scanned for George Lucas, I was like, ‘What’s this for?’
He explained further, “George and I are good friends, so we kind of had a laugh about it because I thought he was doing it because he had all those old guys in Episode I, and if something happened to them, he still wanted to put ‘em in the movie.”
While he went along with it, since joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he has kept alert to the threat that AI and full body-scanning could have on the industry.
Speaking about the more modern experience of the MCU, he said, “Every time you change costumes in a Marvel movie, they scan you. Ever since I did Captain Marvel, and they did the Lola project where they de-aged me and everything else, it’s like, ‘Well, I guess they can do this anytime they want to do it if they really want to!’ It could be something to worry about.”
So, Jackson’s best advice for fellow actors is to stay aware of how their likeness is being used, making sure that they read contracts properly, and to be alert regarding the use of words such as “in perpetuity” and “known and unknown”, adding, “I cross that shit out. It’s my way of saying, ‘No, I do not approve of this’”.
