A $2M movie just came out. 110 minutes, real cast, a real plot. Not one second of it was filmed. "The Cully Hill Boys" is the first fully AI-generated feature film built on legally licensed celebrity likenesses (UFC's Israel Adesanya, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, and streamer N3on all signed real licensing deals to let Higgsfield AI generate their entire performance. This isn't the Tilly Norwood story) nobody was replaced without consent. These are real people who chose to license their face and name instead of showing up to set. That's a real new option for talent. But sit with what it also means: if a studio can license a likeness once and generate unlimited performances from it, the thing that used to require hiring a person, a crew, a set, a schedule, now requires a contract and a render queue. The job didn't get automated. The presence did. If you could license your own likeness for AI use and never show up to set again, would you take that deal?
DEPT 06 · SOUNDSTAGES