With artificial intelligence dominating a lot of pop-culture discussions right now, 20th Century Studios’ The Creator couldn’t have come at a better time. Or is it a worse time for humanity? Opening in September, the sci-fi film drops viewers down in the middle of a future war between the human race and the forces of AI, where Joshua (John David Washington), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon.
Directed and co-written by Gareth Edwards – who previously gave us 2014’s Godzilla and 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (along with the excellent 2010 indie film, Monsters) – The Creator looks to tap into our current fears and paranoia while also tapping into the popular “dystopian father figure” trend from the past decade, as Joshua and his team of elite operative discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child.
We caught up with Edwards at San Diego Comic-Con and chatted with him about The Creator, how the story came about, and what AI might mean for our future of cinema. Plus, what’s it like for Edwards to see characters and concepts he introduced in Rogue One and Godzilla continue on from other, ahem, creators?
Creating the Creator
Edwards dreamed up the idea for The Creator during the Rogue One publicity tour and it only took a few days for him to have it fully formed in his head. “We had some time off and so we ended up driving,” he recalled. “My girlfriend’s from Iowa and we drove across the country for a few days and I was looking out the window and I wasn’t trying to do it on purpose but suddenly… When you finish a movie, all that stuff that’s in your brain that took up all that space for years, you just let it go and it’s like this empty canvas and and so I was just like daydreaming about and not just another movie. And I was listening to soundtracks.”
As Edwards explained, “We just went past this field with tall grass and it looked like there was a factory of some sort in the middle of the field. And the way I remember it is, it had a sort of Japanese logo. And I thought, ‘I wonder what’s going on in there?’ And just the way I’m wired, I was like ‘Imagine they’re building robots in there or something.’ And I was like ‘Imagine being that robot, imagine what it would be like if that’s all you’d seen was that factory you stepped outside.’ You’re in this field, you’re in the world, and you’re like, ‘What is this? What’s going on?’ And then this whole story just started to click into place.”
“By the time we got to my girlfriend’s parent’s house, I had the whole movie in my head,” Edwards shared. “And that never normally happens! Normally it’s like a really painful thing and so that was a good sign of life. ‘Maybe you should develop this, maybe you should try and make this be the next film.'”
AI in Film: Yay or Nay?
In many arenas, AI is a hot topic. Especially in Hollywood where it’s a huge point of contention between studios and the currently striking actors and writers. Edwards, despite having made a movie about an AI Apocalypse, sees some possible benefits to our modern life and creative output, though he also notes it’s quite difficult to know where it will ultimately lead.
“It might put the Internet to shame in terms of how much it changes our lives,” Edwards stated, speaking on AI’s overall impact. “It’s going to be massive in terms of filmmaking. Already there are tools out there, and initially, all those initial thoughts you have, where you think ‘AI will never be able to do this. It won’t be able to understand the beauty of an image’ and that then you go on these websites like Midjourney and type stuff in and it’s pretty f**king good and you go, ‘oh s**t.’”
“And soon that stuff will be able to move,” Edwards continued. “It’ll be moving footage, and then maybe you won’t need cameras. Who knows how it’s all going to play out? It’s going to change filmmaking so much. I think way beyond Jurassic Park and dinosaurs. It’s going to be a big seismic shift, but it’s impossible to predict. My hope is that it sort of democratizes filmmaking – like, it doesn’t cost $200 million anymore to go make something that’s in your head. You can kind of do it from your bedroom. But then the question is, if everyone can make Star Wars from their bedroom, will it be special?”
Of course, Edwards didn’t intend for The Creator to saddle up to such an intense AI debate. The timing was just a coincidence. “It started off as pure fiction, do you know what I mean?” he said. “I’d love to take credit for the fact we just released this in 2023 but I can’t take credit for it. It started off as a metaphor for people who are different. And then as we were filming there were people texting me news articles saying some guy had left Google and thinks that AI they had become sentient.”
Andor and Monster(verse)
Last year, the Disney+ series Andor garnered rave reviews, giving us the prequel tale of Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor, who made his doomed debut in Edwards’ Rogue One. And while Godzilla of course has has a ton of incarnations going back decades, Legendary’s entire ongoing MonsterVerse was introduced via Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla movie. So what’s it like for the filmmaker to see these characters and many specifics of their worlds that he introduced continue on without him?
“It’s weird! It’s like going on Facebook and looking at your ex-girlfriend and she’s married now and really seems really happy with someone else and you’re like, ‘I’m really happy for you but it kind of makes me feel funny,'” Edwards said with a laugh. “I don’t know how to answer that question properly. It’s a double edged sword because, you know – I want Godzilla to live on, right!? I’m glad you’re doing well!”
Edwards’ love of sci-fi is palpable, including having a deep love for projects from the past. “I often look backwards, which is not a good thing to say. I’m a real sucker for anything from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I have nearly every B-movie ever. I also love The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits and things like this. And I think it comes from when I was a kid watching Joe Dante films and Spielberg movies.”
“All the kids in those films watched these black and white B-movies and sci-fi shows. And I wanted to be one of those kids, you know, like in a Stranger Things kind of way. I wanted to ride a BMX bike. So I started collecting those movies so that I could be like them. And then it just infected me and ended up wanting to kind of do that kind of thing, but in a hyper-real, naturalistic way.”
The Creator opens in theaters on September 29.
