Maggie Gyllenhaal scrapped idea to transform Dakota Johnson into Marilyn Monroe using AI for Flesh Impact

Maggie Gyllenhaal has explained how she tried and promptly abandoned an idea to transform Dakota Johnson into Marilyn Monroe using AI for her short film Flesh Impact.

Maggie Gyllenhaal attempted to use AI to transform Dakota Johnson into Marilyn Monroe for her new short film Flesh Impact.

The 48-year-old filmmaker has revealed how she tried to use the technology to turn Dakota into the Hollywood icon for her new project – which marks the centenary of Marilyn’s birth and will premiere at the Venice Film Festival this weekend – but ultimately scrapped the idea as she felt it removed the humanity from the Fifty Shades of Grey star’s performance.

Speaking at the festival, Gyllenhaal said: “The people who commissioned this project from me asked me to use AI. And I thought – I mean, they weren’t using OpenAI, they were using licensable AI, training it off of Marilyn Monroe films that we had licensed. And I went for it. I was like, all right, I’m curious, I don’t know, let’s see.

“The idea was that we trained it on her, we then put her face on Dakota’s face. We worked hard at it, and in the end, I threw it away because what was coming through Dakota playing Marilyn Monroe was so much more moving, human, alive.

“It fundamentally did not work. All the reasons we decided to make this project to begin with were killed off in the AI version.”

Gyllenhaal also highlighted the safety concerns surrounding AI, pointing out that pioneering computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton is “ringing bells of alarm” about the tech.

The Bride! filmmaker said: “He said that he thought that we should programme AI with a maternal instinct. Because what other model is there of a less intelligent creature kind of controlling a more intelligent creature than a baby and its mother?

“I was like, first of all, so fascinating, but what does that mean to program AI with a maternal instinct coming from the godfather — that’s what he’s called — of AI?”

Gyllenhaal expressed concern that talent on both sides of the camera could end up missing out if the use of AI becomes commonplace in the making of movies and reduces costs for studios.

She explained: “$40 million will now be able to cost $4 million if you do it with AI… and maybe even eventually $40,000 — which is what you were talking about in terms of democratising or opening opportunities to people who wouldn’t otherwise have them.

“But the thing is, if you can make a commercial good enough movie for $40,000 or even for $4 million, who’s gonna give you $10 million to do it the old way? Nobody. I mean, maybe there’s a tiny, tiny little market for that. But, you know, that concerns me.”