Gal Gadot defends starring in Bitcoin movie built with AI sets

[RicFlair_What?]

Gal Gadot has defended her decision to star in Doug Liman's upcoming film Bitcoin, which has drawn controversy for using AI to generate its sets and lighting rather than building them traditionally. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Gadot said her lawyers spent six months working through the contract specifically to ensure AI would have no involvement in her actual performance, a process so thorough that SAG reportedly reached out to her lawyers afterward for guidance on updating its own standard contract language to help protect other actors going forward

Gadot described the actual shoot itself, done in what she called a barebones warehouse with the full cast including Casey Affleck, Pete Davidson and Isla Fisher, as feeling almost like theater, since it was essentially just the actors present without the usual wait for lighting or set changes between takes. Producer Ryan Kavanaugh has said using AI for production design and lighting brought the film's budget down from what would have been roughly 300 million dollars to about 70 million dollars

Gadot addressed the broader AI question directly, saying she's afraid of it but doesn't think looking away is a realistic option, framing the choice as either working with the technology now or eventually being left out of the industry entirely. Curious what people think about this specific approach, protecting an actor's actual performance contractually while still allowing AI into other parts of physical production like sets and lighting

Gal Gadot Defends Starring in Bitcoin Movie With AI Sets and Lightingvariety.com

[TristanFenwick]

Framing this as work with it or be out of the game entirely feels like a pretty resigned kind of acceptance rather than genuine enthusiasm on her part, and honestly that specific framing probably reflects how a lot of working actors quietly feel about this whole shift right now

[NebulaKnight]

Six months of contract negotiation specifically to protect just her own performance is honestly a genuinely serious level of caution that most actors probably can't actually afford in terms of legal fees and time. Worth wondering how this specific protection standard eventually trickles down to actors with far less individual negotiating leverage than Gadot clearly has

[Kevin71]

Curious what actually happened to the physical crew jobs that would have normally built all those traditional sets and lighting rigs in this specific production. The savings mentioned so prominently clearly came from somewhere real, and that's usually eliminated human labor sitting underneath the celebrated technology story

[Harbour]

A 230 million dollar budget reduction from using AI for sets and lighting specifically is a genuinely massive number that explains exactly why studios keep pushing toward this despite all the very real ongoing actor and crew concerns about it.

The financial incentive here is honestly enormous and impossible to just wish away entirely

[Matthew51]

SAG reaching out for guidance based on her specific contract language is honestly the most consequential detail buried in this whole story, more than any single quote from Gadot herself. Individual actor negotiations rarely reshape actual industry wide standard contracts this directly and this quickly