Ben Affleck used AI ‘for a lot of things’ in his upcoming Netflix thriller Animalshe declared on Wednesday Bloombergof the Screentime 2026 event. Not that he’s going to tell you which things.
“I used AI for a lot of things in this film. I’m a little hesitant to point out what it is – or even talk about it – because in my line of work we try to foster the illusion of reality, right?” he said Bloomberg journalist Lucas Shaw. “It’s kind of like you go to a magic show and the magician comes out and says, ‘Just before we start, I want you to know there’s another rabbit here. (And) this guy’s a plant. You know, it’s kind of ruined, right? But yeah, we used it, and actually I thought it was a good example (of how to use AI ethically) because it’s a very human film.
Other humans in the film include Gillian Anderson, Steven Yuen and Kerry Washington; Animals premieres on Netflix October 9.
At this point, Affleck and Netflix are deep in bed when it comes to AI. Affleck sold his AI company InterPositive to the streamer for nearly $600 million, so he’s much more bullish on the technology than your average Hollywood heavyweight. He is also much more competent.
But word spreads and panic subsides, he said. Once a filmmaker spends time with AI tools and gains “a sense of control,” the technology “moves away from this nebulous, abstract, terrifying alien — you know, ‘This is going to kill us all,’ all that propaganda — and they actually see what it is,” everyone relaxes, Affleck said.
“It’s a different form of computing…a technological advancement that really fits into a long-standing series of technological improvements that we’ve made in the film and television industry,” he continued. Affleck further stated that he did not believe AI would ever provide the ability for a filmmaker to “grab (a prompt) and make a movie that people want to see.”
Also during the conversation, Affleck dispelled the notion that Netflix regularly forced him and Matt Damon to reword their film’s plot. The tear. Affleck says he and Damon went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to explain that their experience with the streaming giant “was completely contrary” to Damon’s quote that quickly went viral.
“Someone went ahead and made a quote, and it was picked up once, and it was, ‘Matt Damon says Netflix makes you tell the plot in the first five minutes,'” Affleck recalls. “If you stop and think about it, I’m in this movie, I’m directing it. Even if that were true, do you think I’d be talking about Joe Rogan and saying, ‘They made me put all this obvious bullshit in my movie’? Like, that doesn’t even make sense.”
To be honest, the way Damon said what he said was terribly confusing.
“For example, Netflix – the standard way of doing an action movie, as we learned, was to usually have three set pieces. One in the first act, one in the second, one in the third – and the biggest one with all the explosions and you spend most of your money on that one in the third act. That’s your kind of finale,” Damon said on The Joe Rogan Experience. “Now (Netflix) is like, ‘Can we have a big one in the first five minutes?’ We want to keep people tuned in. And it wouldn’t be great if you repeated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.
“(Netflix) would never do that,” Affleck said tonight. “I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone who had such a stupid, cheeky note – and I’ve heard of a lot of stupid studio notes. Silly studio notes predate Netflix. This is a company with a long history of executives telling you to do exactly the wrong thing that will ruin your movie.”
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