This story was originally published on The Spinoff.
It may have been intended to be ironic, but a 10-minute AI-made trailer created by an American film director for the Hollywood in Avondale was met with ‘full-on pitchforks and torches’ when it ran before a movie this week.
What stands out straight away is the fact you can’t really tell what it’s supposed to be. It’s Russell Crowe, but with a contorted figure that expands and thins, gets older and younger, generated completely by AI. Then there are the signs with the jumbled-up lettering that can’t even properly spell the name of the cinema it’s promoting – Auckland’s the Hollywood in Avondale. Then you see the AI-generated Māori warriors whose tā moko are just geometric scrawls, and your theory that the popcorn’s laced almost seems confirmed.
