Movies
‘Saw’ Co-creator’s ‘Stem’ Enlists a ‘Purge’ Survivor
THR reports that Purge: Election Year‘s Betty Gabriel, pictured middle, has been cast as the female lead opposite Prometheus‘s Logan Marshall-Green in the sci-fi thriller Stem from writer-director Leigh Whannell, the co-creator of the Saw and Insidious horror franchises.
The script is set in a near-future when technology controls nearly all aspects of life and centers on a technophobe (Marshall-Green) who avenges his wife’s murder and his own paralysis-causing injury with the help of an experimental computer-chip implant called Stem. Gabriel’s role is being kept secret.
Goalpost Pictures and Blumhouse Productions are the companies behind the project, with Blum, Kylie du Fresne and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones acting as producers.
Gabriel will next be seen in Get Out (read our review), a new horror-thriller from Jordan Peele, which is set to open Feb. 24.
Movies
‘Backrooms’ Director Kane Parsons Is No Fan of Generative AI: “Defeats the Purpose Entirely for Me”
There has been a lot of talk recently about filmmakers embracing generative AI as part of the filmmaking process, from Darren Aronofsky to Martin Scorsese. But what about filmmakers that are against the use of Gen AI for creative pursuits? You can count 20-year-old Backrooms director Kane Parsons among that group, which should give you some hope for the future.
In a new chat with The Australian, the self-taught young filmmaker makes it crystal clear that he won’t be using generative AI in any of his upcoming filmmaking projects.
“I think I’m in the same boat as most well-adjusted people,” Parsons tells the outlet. “If I could snap my fingers and make generative AI disappear forever, I probably would. Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools. It defeats the purpose entirely for me.”
“What interests me more is interrogating it artistically,” Parsons notes. “We already live in a world where you walk outside and there are billboards and signs that are obvious AI slop. That’s become part of our visual reality. To me, generative AI feels less like innovation than a symptom of a broader cultural and economic rot.”
He explains, “I’m interested in using that iconography in art – not using AI to make the art itself, but examining what it represents. I definitely want to explore it further in future projects.”
Kane Parsons also notes during the interview with The Australian, “… there’s so much at stake and so many genuinely harmful consequences already happening.”
Backrooms marks young prodigy Kane Parsons’ feature directorial debut, and it’s based on his own series of YouTube videos that were brought to life using Blender, the open-source 3D computer graphics software suite. So it’s no surprise that Parsons, who has hand-made his filmmaking career up to this point, isn’t buying into the hoopla around Generative AI.
His debut feature is the #1 movie in the world, so perhaps he’s onto something.
What’s next from Kane Parsons, you ask? Stay tuned…
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