{"id":482616,"date":"2026-05-13T13:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/482616\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T13:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:20:10","slug":"peter-jackson-talks-upcoming-projects-ais-role-in-filmmaking-its-just-a-tool-like-any-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/482616\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Jackson Talks Upcoming Projects, AI’s Role in Filmmaking: “It’s Just a Tool Like Any Other”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFilmmaker Peter Jackson<\/a>, a VFX visionary as much as a master storyteller, says he\u2019s not particularly concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence tools on the future of filmmaking.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAI used in the right way, it\u2019s just a tool like any other tool,\u201d Jackson said Wednesday morning at the Cannes Film Festival. \u201cBut like anything, it\u2019s going to come down to the imagination and originality of the person, you know, feeding the instructions into the AI program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIs it actually interesting? Is it funny? Is it imaginative? Has it been stitched together well to make a narrative, a story?\u201d Jackson continued. \u201cSome people will make really, really great films, and some people will do the exact same process, and their film will be crap \u2014 just like normal films.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson compared AI to the early stop-motion technology used to create the original King Kong and the Ray Harryhausen movies \u2014 pioneering examples of fantasy filmmaking that he famously adores \u2014 suggesting that he\u2019s agnostic about the tools, provided the results are imaginative.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThose were done with stop-motion by a person moving a rubber creature,\u201d he added. \u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t somebody on a computer using AI software be able to create their own imagery?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson brought his lovably rumpled personage to the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur to accept an honorary Palme d\u2019Or at the Cannes Film Festival\u2019s glitzy opening ceremony<\/a> Tuesday night. He took part in a wide-ranging talk session the next morning, where he discussed the making of his early splatter classics (Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead), the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, and his recent documentary projects, including The Beatles: Get Back. As at Tuesday\u2019s ceremony, the legendary Kiwi director was supported by his Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood at the talk session, with the actor sitting among a few hundred adoring fans inside Cannes\u2019 Palais des Festivals.<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson gave a sweet shoutout to Wood from the stage while discussing the most high-stakes phase of his career \u2014 when he agreed to direct three big-budget fantasy films in a row at a scale of budget and technical complexity never remotely attempted by his New Zealand film industry. He recalled regularly being in a state of despair during the drive from his home to the set each morning, full of doubts about how he would tackle the day\u2019s scenes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI gotta say, the one thing with Elijah, beyond any of the other actors, is that I would show up on set and he would be relentlessly cheerful every single day,\u201d Jackson said, pointing to his friend and former leading man in the audience. \u201cHe was, like, \u2018Okay, let\u2019s get this done! What are we going to do?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was always there to help me make the movie I wanted to make,\u201d Jackson continued. \u201cSome actors, they do sort of show up and they\u2019ve got this whole idea of what they want to make, but Elijah just was there to collaborate, and he\u2019s got this optimistic energy. So, no matter how down I would feel when I arrived and got out of the car, he would be there, like, \u2018Hey, how\u2019s it going!\u2019 Having somebody there who was that insanely cheerful was very, very helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson also gave updates during the talk on his long-gestating Tintin feature film project, Andy Serkis\u2019 upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum movie and a possible World War II feature he hopes to make about the Dambusters Raid.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re actually writing the next Tintin film now,\u201d he said. \u201cThe deal was that Steven [Spielberg] directs one and I direct another. So Steven did his film, and then for 15 years I haven\u2019t made mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI feel very awkward about that,\u201d he continued. \u201cSteven\u2019s gracious enough not to sort of push me, but I know that I want to make it right. So I\u2019ve been working with Fran [Walsh] on another Tintin script. I was writing it in the hotel room here just a couple of days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Serkis\u2019 The Hunt for Gollum, Jackson said he was happy to step aside and let the legendary motion-capture performer \u2014 who famously originated the role of Gollum in the original Lord of the Rings trilogy \u2014 direct the spinoff feature himself.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI thought, well, this story would actually be more interesting if Gollum himself directed it \u2014 and Andy is about as close as you can get,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThe film is very much an internal story about Gollum\u2019s psychology and his sort of addiction. It\u2019s a very personal story to Gollum the character. And so I thought, well, Andy knows this guy better than anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t really think much about the idea of me doing it at all,\u201d he continued. \u201cI thought the most exciting version of this movie is going to be if Andy Serkis makes it, because he\u2019s going to put a Gollum psychology on screen that you cannot imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI mean, I\u2019m there to help when I can help,\u201d he added. \u201cIf I can be of assistance at certain times and answer questions, I\u2019m there. But I don\u2019t interfere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson said he also hopes to soon make a World War II feature about Operation Chastise, commonly known as the Dambusters Raid, the high-stakes British bombing of German hydroelectric dams in 1943.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a really amazing story about invention and solving problems to try to achieve a goal,\u201d Jackson said, noting the 1955 British film The Dam Busters about the historical incident, but adding that the full story remains to be told because British documentation about the raid was still classified during the making of that earlier, somewhat fictionalized feature.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe true story is actually much more interesting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDambusters was actually the movie I was supposed to make until I ended up doing The Hobbit \u2014 and then I sort of swapped in other films afterwards,\u201d Jackson explained. \u201cBut The Dam Busters is sitting there in the back of my mind, so I\u2019d like to make that soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson also balanced his views on AI elsewhere in his talk with a few caveats, noting that he was \u201cnot talking about AI in general, like the thing that it might destroy the world,\u201d but just its film world applications.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTo me, it\u2019s just a special effect,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s no different from any other special effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe only thing with AI that I think is absolutely critical,\u201d he added, \u201cis that you don\u2019t do an AI version of an actor without their own approval.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJackson likened the AI licensing of identity rights to any other form of licensing involved in the conventional film industry.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou can\u2019t play music, a song in a film, unless you own the rights to that song. You can\u2019t adapt a book unless you have licensed the book,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you shouldn\u2019t be able to show somebody\u2019s face through an AI technique without the approval of whoever it is \u2014 either the person themselves, or if they\u2019re dead, their estate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added: \u201cI mean, it\u2019s pretty straightforward, really. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t see the concern about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Filmmaker Peter Jackson, a VFX visionary as much as a master storyteller, says he\u2019s not particularly concerned about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,190863,18,19,1452,17,55595,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-482616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-cannes-2026","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-international","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-peter-jackson","17":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116567475925146029","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}