Hollywood is losing audiences due to AI fatigue

Rebel robot Launched by a crazy inventor in Fritz Lang Metropolis. HAL 9000 sabotages a manned mission to Jupiter in 2001: A space journey. Skynet, the self-conscious global defense network that seeks to annihilate humanity worldwide finisher privilege.

Hollywood He never wanted a bold portrayal of artificial intelligence Or the ways in which it could change the fate of our species. But the rapid integration of AI into the studio system and our now-unavoidable interactions with it have severely damaged the genre, let alone film as a medium.

On the one hand, it’s completely understandable that screenwriters and studios have returned to the topic of AI in recent years, especially since it is sparking such fierce debate within the industry. (One of the main reasons Labor strikes 2023 The threat posed by artificial intelligence to creative jobs. However, the novelty quickly wore off.

It is considered M3GANa horror film about an artificially intelligent doll that starts killing people, was released just a week after ChatGPT debuted in 2022: It was a surprise Box office smash. Sequel to last year? A monetary and commercial failure. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023) introduced a rogue AI called The Entity as the final opponent of Ethan Hunt and his crew. Resolve the exciting and blockbuster ending to the spy saga, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025), underperformed its predecessor, and did not fully justify its expenses.

The latest AI-themed bombshell is mercyA crime thriller starring Chris Pratt as an LAPD detective who is tied to a chair and has 90 minutes to pull enough evidence from security cameras and phone records to convince a strict judge (Rebecca Ferguson) that he did not kill his wife or face immediate execution. Despite being released in January, one reviewer has already declared it “Worst movie of 2026“, and judging by modest ticket sales, many US moviegoers decided by the trailer alone. It’s as if no one cares whether a fictional computer program might be able to save someone’s life when real health insurance claims are filed. Rejected by algorithms actually.

For those few who have seen it, mercy It was a far cry from its dystopian premise, failing to grapple with the ethics of this surveillance state and the modern medieval justice system in favor of cheap relativism. Spoiler: Pratt’s character and the AI ​​eventually team up to stop… TRUE The villains are when the robot begins to show signs of non-robot emotion and suspicion, which manifests as glitches in the software. In the end, Pratt delivers a real groan of “we’re not that different” speech to a holographic Ferguson. “Whether we’re human or AI, we all make mistakes,” he says. “And we learn.”

While the naive belief in AI’s progress toward enlightenment seems outdated since its arrival, you’re also reminded how prophetic irony something like Paul Verhoeven’s book is. Robocopnow almost 40 years old, has been tackling the future of cyberfascism. In contrast to this kind of violent and dark cynicism, the current trend seems to be propagandistic narratives about how AI is initially scary but secretly good. (See also: Tron: AresDisney’s largely misguided attempt to cash in on an old IP for the era of big language models, is another cinematic trainwreck in 2025.)

In fact, the insistence on some innate value or honor for artificial intelligence may be the driving force behind Time Studios’ new web series. On this day…1776. Conceived as a detailed account of the year in which the American colonies declared their independence from the British Crown, it consists of short YouTube videos created in part by Google DeepMind (although actual actors provide voiceovers). The project has generated serious interest and disdain because acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky served as executive producer through his creative studio Primordial Soup, which launched last year in partnership with Google to explore applications of artificial intelligence in filmmaking. It probably doesn’t help that Aronofsky and company venerate the country’s founders with the same aesthetic that defined them Authoritarian meme culture From Donald Trump’s second term.