Key Takeaways
- Paul Schrader plans to cast AI-generated characters in Three Guns at Dawn, saying he and then-producer Antoine Fuqua could not secure three bankable Black actors for the crime film.
- The filmmaker initially said AI meant he “didn’t need Black actors” after performers rejected a story whose Black leads are a corrupt cop, a drug lord, and a serial sex offender, prompting Boots Riley to call his subsequent explanation “a f*cking lie.”
- Schrader framed the movie as a technology experiment rather than a career pivot, while reiterating his belief that Hollywood cannot stop generative AI from replacing jobs.
Paul Schrader initially said he couldn’t find Black actors willing to lead a crime movie in which every Black character was a criminal. So instead of abandoning the project, the Taxi Driver screenwriter decided artificial intelligence could play them.
Schrader’s long-delayed noir film Three Guns at Dawn was originally built around three Black brothers in South Central Los Angeles: a corrupt cop, a drug lord, and a serial sex offender. The brothers spend the film trying to kill one another. Antoine Fuqua, the director behind Training Day and the Equalizer franchise, had been attached to produce before eventually walking away.
“We sent it out to actors, and no Black actors wanted to play in a movie where there are no good Black people,” Schrader told The Playlist at the Venice Film Festival. “And it sort of died. But then AI came along, and I didn’t need Black actors.”
Rather than use artificial intelligence for a handful of effects, Schrader intends to populate the entire film with what he has described as “AI-generated human prototypes.”
After those comments drew backlash, Schrader clarified them. He told MovieMaker that he and Fuqua could have found Black performers, but not three whose names could secure financing for the project. “We couldn’t find three BANKABLE Black actors to sign on,” he wrote.
Schrader then claimed he later changed the characters to white men but ran into the same problem: “Still couldn’t find three BANKABLE actors. AI actors need not be bankable.”
Filmmaker Boots Riley wasn’t buying Schrader’s original explanation. Riley, whose I Love Boosters follows three Black women who steal luxury merchandise, called the claim that Black actors would not portray criminals “a f*cking lie.”
Schrader fired back that Riley’s “fun-loving shoplifters” were not comparable to a corrupt police officer, a drug lord, and a serial sexual predator.
Schrader also insisted that Three Guns at Dawn is a technology experiment, not a wholesale departure from traditional filmmaking. He said he has three non-AI projects lined up, with the first scheduled to begin production in October. “I’m doing an AI film not so much for the story but because I’m fascinated by the technological possibilities,” he said.
The filmmaker has made no secret of where he believes the industry is headed. “Those jobs are gone, babe,” Schrader previously said of Hollywood’s resistance to generative AI. “You can scream ‘Stop AI’ all you want, but you can’t stop it.”
