Soderbergh on using AI for his John Lennon doc & no hope for Ben Solo
The Christophers
Steven Soderbergh is on the promotional circuit for his new film The Christophers. Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings), Michaela Coel (Mother Mary) star in Soderbergh’s latest. The dark comedy is “about the estranged children of a once-famous artist who hire a forger to complete his unfinished works so they can be discovered and sold after his death.” The movie has been scripted by Ed Solomon, who has worked with Soderbergh on several projects, including No Sudden Move, Full Circle, and Mosaic.
AI John Lennon
While on the promo circuit, Soderbergh spoke with Filmmaker, where the publication alluded to the depressing thought of AI engulfing the future of movies. The director was quick to look on the bright side of the subject with his positive experiences. Soderbergh revealed that he is using the technology for a John Lennon documentary and explained,
It’s worth talking about what that technology might be good at. I’ve been working with AI lately on the John Lennon and Yoko Ono documentary that we’re almost done with. AI has been helpful in creating thematically surreal images that occupy a dream space rather than a literal space. And that’s been really fun because you need a Ph.D. in literature to tell it what to do. But like every other piece of technology, it desperately requires very close human supervision.”
He goes on to reveal,
Ninety percent of the visuals are archival stills, and 10 minutes, spread out over the 90-minute film, are these little pockets of images we created whenever they start talking philosophically. When there’s no literal component to what they’re saying, then I create these images that are kind of a surreal version of what their words try to transmit.”
No more go on Ben Solo
Soderbergh also talked with The Playlist, who brought up his once-upon-a-time Star Wars project. Although the project that he and Adam Driver were once passionate about was canceled, there was an overwhelming amount of support online that may have shown how much interest there was in a Ben Solo project. When asked if he would ever be interested in jumping-starting the development again, Soderbergh simply and firmly said, “Nope.”
Then, he expounded, “I don’t regret one minute of the time we spent working on that. I felt the work was good. It’s just good for you to be in that room and working on it. It’s like CrossFit—it’s good for you. It’ll have a residual effect that will be unexpected at some point.” Then, he went on to say, “As soon as it became apparent, OK, not gonna happen, I sat down and started writing [something else]. It’s like, ‘OK, new scenario, let’s get cracking.’ At a certain point, it’s like complaining about the weather. You just gotta keep moving.”
Soderbergh concluded, “Look, if it was gonna happen, it would have happened. It’s that simple.”
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