Here's a question that cuts right to the heart of Hollywood's AI anxiety: Why would you hire 150 human extras when you could just generate them digitally?
That's what Kevin O'Leary, the "Shark Tank" investor, asked in a recent interview with The Hill. He wasn't just musing hypothetically—he was talking about an actual film he appeared in. The upcoming A24 movie "Marty Supreme," which stars Timothée Chalamet, featured scenes with more than 150 human extras. O'Leary thinks that was a waste of money.
The Numbers Tell an Interesting Story
"Almost every scene had as many as 150 extras," O'Leary explained. "Why couldn't you simply just put AI agents in their place?" It's a fair question if you're thinking purely about spreadsheets. A24 dropped about $12 million just filming segments in New Jersey, according to NJ.com.
For context, that's a dramatic shift from A24's earlier approach. "Moonlight," which won Best Picture in 2016, cost just $1.5 million to make in its entirety, according to The Numbers. The studio built its reputation on lean, powerful storytelling. Now they're spending eight times that amount on location work alone.
O'Leary took his critique further, suggesting the entire production was bloated. "That same director, instead of spending $90 million or whatever he spent, could've spent $35 million and made two movies," he told The Hill. The pitch is simple: cut costs with AI, make more content.
Hollywood's Labor Groups Are Drawing Hard Lines
But there's a problem with O'Leary's efficiency argument—actual human actors don't love the idea of being replaced by algorithms. The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists made their position clear in September, stating the union "believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered." They explicitly oppose replacing performers with what they call "synthetics."
This isn't just philosophical posturing. The union's November 2023 collective-bargaining agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers established concrete rules around digital replicas. If a studio wants to reuse a performer's image—even for background crowd scenes—they need consent and they need to pay for it. Those provisions directly address the kind of AI substitution O'Leary is proposing.
The Creative Pushback
Simu Liu, who starred in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," didn't hold back when responding to O'Leary's comments. He told Deadline last month that replacing background actors with AI "is so antithetical to my development as an actor." His reasoning? "Art is art because it's human."
It's an interesting clash of worldviews. O'Leary sees inefficiency and wasted capital. Liu sees the fundamental nature of creative work. Both have a point, which is probably why this debate isn't going away anytime soon. As AI tools become more sophisticated, Hollywood will keep wrestling with where to draw the line between cost savings and preserving the human element that makes storytelling work in the first place.