Marvel Gets Sucker-Punched For Using AI-Generated Art In Opening Theme

Is this the endgame for art in movie production as you know it? This is what viewers are worrying about after discovering that Marvel Studios employed art-generating artificial intelligence to create the opening sequence for Disney+’s Secret Invasion.

The television series, which premiered on the streaming platform this week, centers on a high-tech race of reptilian shape-shifters, Skrulls, who spend a great deal of their lives taking on the forms of other beings. Unsurprisingly, audiences go into the show doubting everything, keenly aware that characters like Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) may not be who they seem.

This theme of morphing identities is further illustrated in the series’s opening credits, produced by visual effects company Method Studios.

The watercolor-like animation adopts a style often associated with generative artificial intelligence, and that’s because it’s what was used to make this portion.

secret invasion opening used ai art....... one of the dumbst things I've ever seen pic.twitter.com/2UQJJgqsrW

— Gabriel ⧗ (@dorksofprey) June 21, 2023

Director Ali Selim admitted this in an interview with Polygon, noting that the blending aesthetic of the animation was in line with the Skrulls’ shape-shifting identity.

This effect would drive fans to ask, “Who did this? Who is this?” he continued.

Selim shared that he didn’t fully understand how AI works, but he discovered it to be an “explorative and inevitable” art tool, one that was also “exciting, and different.”

Explaining the creative process, Selim said Marvel Studios brainstormed ideas, themes, and words with Method Studios, and the technology would do its thing. Gradually, they changed up the descriptors, prompting the work to evolve as they went.

I really loved the first episode of secret invasion but them using AI “art” for their intro is just wack

Do better Marvel pic.twitter.com/BCjOWA3xNt

— Okiro (@TheFirstOkiro) June 21, 2023

Although the concept wasn’t lost on some viewers, they also lamented that Marvel could have hired real artists to work on the shape-shifting element.

The advance of generative AI has created a great divide, with one of the loudest criticisms being that such tools are trained on real human work without permission.

“Marvel using AI for Secret Invasion’s opening credits in order to achieve the look of an entity trying to replicate art by humans, like the Skrulls mimicking human behavior, isn’t the worst idea I’ve heard,” acknowledges a fan. “Still, they could’ve just hired actual artists to do a better job.”

Another chimes in: “You’re a multibillion-dollar company… and you couldn’t hire actual artists to create the intro for Secret Invasion?”

So Marvel really used AI to make the intro for #SecretInvasion… it’s actually over. pic.twitter.com/pWUNOZWTqd

— Brian Long (@BrianLongFilms) June 21, 2023

One person points out that the franchise “wouldn’t even exist without artist.”

They elaborate: “Not hyperbole. You think people were reading those comics for the dialogue? It was the art. The artists.”

[via The Guardian, Polygon, The Gamer, images via various sources]