Hollywood
Darren Aronofsky releases his second AI Film
The Oscar-nominated director's three-film project with Google's video AI reveals both promise and pitfalls as the second release faces backlash.
The Oscar-nominated director's three-film project with Google's video AI reveals both promise and pitfalls as the second release faces backlash from critics.
It's the second project in a three-film slate announced last May between Aronofsky's Primordial Soup studio and Google's AI division, positioning the director of Requiem for a Dream and The Whale at the forefront of what he calls filmmaking's next evolution. Where th[e first film earned festival acclaim, this follow-up has critics calling it slop.
ANCESTRA, directed by Eliza McNitt and executive produced by Aronofsky, premiered at Tribeca in June 2025 to curious crowds. McNitt used Google's Veo text-to-video model to visualize abstract concepts: the womb as cosmos, birth as stellar formation. The behind-the-scenes footage shows Aronofsky mentoring McNitt through the process, treating AI generation like any other cinematographic tool requiring craft and intention.
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The second film which commemorates the birth of the US pushes further. With actors, performances and dialogue. Despite this the film stumbles technically in a few beats but given the acceleration of the tech, it's an early look at what the tech promises for the future.
The issue might be the model: Veo's current capabilities appear better suited to abstract or fantastical content than historical recreation requiring consistent human faces and period details. The involvement of union actors and human editors doesn't guarantee quality when the underlying generated footage uses less sophisticated narrative models.
High-profile creators lending credibility to AI tools are facing reputational risks when the technology underdelivers. Festival premieres and YouTube releases represent different risk calculations for AI-assisted content. The gap between film one and film two reveals how use case dramatically affects perception of AI video tools and with recent news that AMC pulled AI generated shorts it looks like the overton window has yet to fully shift in favor of generative AI films.
The third film's announcement, whenever it comes, will reveal whether Aronofsky's team will be able to address the technical criticism and ignore the detractors.