Natasha Lyonne to Direct and Star in AI-Powered Film 'Uncanny Valley'

Natasha Lyonne to direct and star in a new sci-fi film created with generative AI

Charles Pulliam-Moore is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years. Poker Face's Natasha Lyonne has a new project in the works that seemed poised to become a case study in the debate about how and whether Hollywood should be using generative AI. Lyonne is teaming up with technologist and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier to produce a new sci-fi film that will feature elements generated by AI models. Titled Uncanny Valley, the feature will tell the story -- which Lyonne co-wrote with The OA's Brit Marling -- of a teenage girl whose life is turned upside down by a popular virtual reality game. In addition to directing, Lyonne will star in the film alongside Marling. The film's more fantastical visuals are being developed by Asteria, a new AI-focused production company Lyonne co-founded with her partner, director / producer Bryn Mooser (Body Team 12, Lifeboat). In a statement about Uncanney Valley, Lyonne said that collaborating with Marling and Lanier was an "endlessly inspiring" experience, and likened the film to a Wachowski project. "Imagine if Dianne Wiest and Diane Keaton, at their loquacious best, decided to take a journey through The Matrix for sport, only to find themselves holding up an architectural blueprint, and you'll have a sense of the adventure we've been on," Lyonne said. "Coming together as a trio in cahoots with the astounding imagineers at Asteria, to worldbuild this film at scale, has been a synergistic dream come true." Asteria is trying to differentiate itself from other AI entertainment outfits by emphasizing its use of Marey, an AI model created by generative text-to-video startup Moonvalley. Moonvalley markets Marey as of the first truly "clean" AI models due to it being trained entirely on licensed material whose original creators were properly compensated. Uncanny Valley does not yet have a production timeline, and there's no word on whether Asteria intends to debut the film theatrically or on a streaming service. But news of the project's existence comes at a time when it has become increasingly clear that Hollywood is open to the idea of working with AI companies, and incorporating the technology into their production workflows despite concerns about its exploitative potential. Last month, more than 400 artists signed an open letter slamming OpenAI and Google for insisting that they should be allowed to train their models on copyrighted material as "a matter of national security." And in 2023, the threat of AI being used to create digital replicas of / replace living actors was one of the contributing factors that ultimately led to an industry-wide strike. Because Marey is purportedly trained on footage that Moonvalley compensated the original creators for, Uncanny Valley could sidestep some of the issues posed by other types of AI. But what's not at all clear is whether this kind of workflow might produce a movie people actually want to see, and if the project has any real legs beyond making for a solid bit of tech hype.

'AI Can Enable Bigger Visions': Natasha Lyonne to Direct and Star in AI-Powered Film - Decrypt

Natasha Lyonne is taking on Silicon Valley's AI obsession in "Uncanny Valley," a new sci-fi film that blurs the line between human performance and artificial intelligence. The move comes two years after Lyonne joined over 1,000 members of the Writers Guild of America in signing a petition calling for more AI guardrails in the entertainment industry. Joining the "Poker Face" and "Slums of Beverly Hills" star, who will direct and star in the satirical dystopian film, are actress and director Brit Marling and futurist and author Jaron Lanier. While details about the "Uncanny Valley" are scarce, according to a report by Variety, the film, announced on Tuesday, follows Mila, a teenager whose sense of reality begins to deteriorate as she becomes immersed in an open-world augmented reality game that blurs the lines between the digital and physical worlds. The film is still in early development, and no release date has been set. "AI can enable bigger visions onscreen -- but we must also grapple with its myriad complexities surrounding artist's rights," Lyonne said in a statement. "Our goal is to face these head-on and help shape new industry standards and protections." Toronto-based AI developer MoonValley and Los Angeles-based Asteria Film Co. are developing the film's generative AI element. The "uncanny valley" refers to the eerie feeling people experience when a robot or digital character appears almost human. "When it comes to new technology, many artists are afraid to lean in," Asteria Film co-founder Bryn Mooser said in a statement. "But Natasha and Brit once again proved what sets them apart as head of class in artistic genius: They're not just creative forces -- they're fluent in the language of emerging tech." Lanier described "Uncanny Valley" as a meditation on human connection, not just a commentary on technology. "There is a story here about technology, but it is really about people, and the unpredictable thread of connection that joins us across generations, technologies, and divergent weirdness," he said. Since the public launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, Hollywood has been grappling with how to adapt to the emerging technology. In 2023, generative AI was a key factor contributing to the months-long strike by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA. In March, Lyonne joined other entertainers -- including Mark Ruffalo, Paul McCartney, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, and Chris Rock -- in signing an open letter to the Trump Administration to uphold existing copyright protections against AI training, after Google and OpenAI requested that the laws be relaxed. Despite concerns about AI, movie studios and filmmakers are seeking ways to leverage the technology to their advantage. In November, "Blade Runner" and "Gladiator II" director Ridley Scott said he is trying to embrace AI. "I don't think it's going to create jobs except for very high-end specialists," Scott told the New York Times. "You can have done in a week what would take 10 guys 10 weeks." The upcoming film "Watch the Skies," a Swedish UFO thriller set to hit U.S. theaters this May, will be the first full theatrical release to utilize visual dubbing technology developed by AI company Flawless. This technology digitally alters actors' lip movements to match English dialogue, making the film appear as if it were shot in English. "A lot of filmmakers and a lot of actors will be afraid of this technology at first, but we have the creative control, and to act out the film in English was a really exciting experience," Watch the Skies writer-director Victor Danell said in a making-of-featurette.

Natasha Lyonne Bets on AI With Directorial Debut 'Uncanny Valley'

As revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, Lyonne is teaming up with The OA co-creator Brit Marling and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier on a sci-fi film called Uncanny Valley. The movie will include AI-generated visuals from Asteria, a self-described "artist-led generative AI film and animation studio" co-founded by Lyonne and her partner, the filmmaker and entrepreneur Bryn Mooser. Asteria and its partner Moonvalley AI recently debuted the video model Marey, which they tout as "clean and ethical" because it was trained only on licensed content, whereas similar models have scraped publicly available or copyrighted material without permission. Uncanny Valley, co-written by Lyonne and Marling, co-stars both actresses, with Lyonne making her feature directorial debut. It follows Mila, a teenage girl who becomes immersed in an open-world augmented reality video game, with the boundaries between physical and digital realities increasingly blurred. In a statement, Lyonne described working on the project with Marling as if "Dianne Wiest and Diane Keaton, at their loquacious best, decided to take a journey through The Matrix for sport, only to find themselves holding up an architectural blueprint." It's not yet clear whether the film, which Lyonne has also compared to the films of the Wachowski sisters, who wrote and directed The Matrix, is intended for theatrical release or a streaming platform. Presumably, generative AI will figure into sequences involving the game played by Mila. An Asteria representative told The Hollywood Reporter that the movie "will blend traditional storytelling techniques with cutting-edge AI technologies to create a radical new cinematic experience." AI has been a fractious issue across the entertainment industry and was a major sticking point in the 2023 Hollywood strikes, which found screenwriters and actors fearful that studios could use it to churn out scripts or insert a movie star's likeness into visual content long after their death. Hundreds of actors, directors, and other film insiders -- led by Lyonne -- recently signed a letter urging the federal government not to loosen copyright protections preventing AI companies from training their models on a wider pool of writing, visuals, and more. But while unions have pushed back on these tools, companies like OpenAI, which in West Hollywood this March staged a festival of shorts made with its text-to-video model Sora, have sought to convince Hollywood of their potential. Some studio executives, meanwhile, are eager to implement such models in their production flows, not least for achieving impressive visual effects with far less human labor. All of which makes Uncanny Valley a precarious proposition for Lyonne and her creative team. On the one hand, it sounds like the story aims to comment on the latest innovations in tech while showcasing them, and Asteria has clearly marketed itself as a non-predatory AI company. On the other, the public has a generally negative view of AI, and is far less optimistic about its prospects than those currently working in the field. Among 2024's Oscar favorites, more than one film faced criticism for relying on AI. That said, it's anyone's guess whether Hollywood can fend off the machines in the long run, and those who embrace them now may just be adapting to the inevitable. As for Uncanny Valley, audiences will decide for themselves if it represents the future they want to see.

Natasha Lyonne Set to Make Feature Directorial Debut With AI Film -- With Help From Jaron Lanier (Exclusive)

How a Little-Known Movie About Trump's Football Fiasco Explains His Tariff Tantrums You are not a gadget -- but you might be immersed in an artificial intelligence-generated film. In one of the more unusual creative collaborations to come along in a while, The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Jaron Lanier -- the longtime technology innovator and sometime-skeptic -- is teaming with Natasha Lyonne and Brit Marling for a new feature film that will be set in the world of immersive videogames and make abundant use of AI. Uncanny Vallley, as the project is called, is backed by Asteria, the new AI-based studio founded by Lyonne and Los Angeles-based filmmaker and entrepreneur Bryn Mooser. Lyonne will direct from a script she wrote with Marling; both will star. Centered on a teenage girl who becomes unmoored by a hugely popular AR video game in a parallel present, the movie will blend traditional live action and game elements. The latter will be created by Lanier as well as Lyonne and Marling. And the entire enterprise will draw on AI from Asteria partner Moonvalley via a model called "Marey," which unlike systems from companies like Runway and OpenAI is built only on data that has been copyright-cleared. A representative for Asteria says the film "will blend traditional storytelling techniques with cutting-edge AI technologies to create a radical new cinematic experience." Whether the film is being geared toward theatrical, streaming or a more cutting-edge platform remains to be seen. While AI has recently been floated as a way to fill in postproduction gaps and speed up workflow, it has seldom been integrated into the narrative of the film itself, and certainly not with the kind of top-tier names involved here. Since co-founding Asteria, Lyonne and has been tinkering with large language models as she seeks to become one of the veteran actors at the fore of new forms of storytelling. The movie marks her feature directorial debut; she also directed upcoming episodes of her Columbo-esque Peacock hit Poker Face, which returns for its second season next week. With the project, Lyonne also pushes further into narrative experimentations that began with the time-looping Russian Doll, while Marling continues the shapeshifting themes that The OA exhibited. (Her partner on that Netflix cult hit, Zal Batmanglij, is also a producer here.) She called this and other sci-fi projects "a tool of resistance." More than just another indie project, Uncanny Valley could offer a key early test of whether Generative AI will automate and dilute content, as some critics have contended, or whether it could expand creative possibilities. Mooser, who has a slate of projects at Asteria that rely on its licensed-based model, said he believes this project will work because it comes from storytellers instead of programmers. "When artists lead the tech instead of the other way round, trailblazing and unexpected advancements are possible," says Mooser, who is producing along with Justin Lacob, an executive at his documentary company. Lyonne noted in a statement that she and Marling's work on the project -- ChatGPT couldn't come up with this -- is like if "Dianne Wiest and Diane Keaton, at their loquacious best, decided to take a journey through The Matrix for sport, only to find themselves holding up an architectural blueprint." She also called Lanier "a bona fide polymath, a philosophically expansive personal hero and a singular, sage-like character for the ages." After leaving Atari to found a crucial VR startup in the 1980's, Lanier has become one of Silicon Valley's leading thinkers through turns at Microsoft Research and general parts of the public sphere, even as he has also often expressed skepticism for what Big Tech was wreaking. "I'm disappointed with the way the Internet has gone in the past ten years," he told The New Yorker in 2011. "I've always felt that the human-centered approach to computer science leads to more interesting, more exotic, more wild, and more heroic adventures than the machine-supremacy approach, where information is the highest goal." (Lanier advised Steven Spielberg on Minority Report, if any of those themes sound familiar.) His 2010 manifesto You Are Not a Gadget argued for reclaiming personal data -- never mind humanity -- in the face of then-growing social-media power. And while he has said that tech can be a powerful tool for artistry, he has also recently noted that AI, unlike VR, can limit consciousness. Lanier and Lyonne previously appeared together at a Tribeca Film Festival panel at which he made that distinction and said that "In virtual reality you could make very very strange experiences, you could turn into different animals... you could split up your body into pieces and feel a diffuseness... you could change your sense of time... you could flow your bodies with others." But he believes this project can center both technology and humanity even with the use of AI. In a statement to THR, Lanier said that "There is a story here about technology, but it is really about people, and the unpredictable thread of connection that joins us across generations, technologies, and divergent weirdness."

Cinephile Natasha Lyonne Defends AI Film 'Uncanny Valley': "Nothing I Love More Than Movies"

Shelter PR Promotes Jenny Tversky, Jessica Sze, Stephanie Kazanjian and Larissa Saenz Natasha Lyonne had a long press line clamoring for her attention Thursday night at the second season premiere of Peacock's Poker Face in Hollywood. The veteran actress, whose multi-hyphenate duties on the critically acclaimed comedy series include writing, directing, starring and executive producing, didn't have time to stop for every outlet before she was needed on the American Legion Post 43 stage to introduce the screening alongside her partner-in-crime Rian Johnson. So she did something rare (and appreciated among the journalists left waiting outside) by heading to the stage to deliver those comments only to return to the red carpet and give every reporter some of her undivided attention. After detailing the "magic" of the new season thanks to a killer line-up of high-profile guest stars, The Hollywood Reporter asked Lyonne about that other new project of hers on the horizon -- an artificial intelligence-infused film Uncanny Valley. News of the project broke two days before the Poker Face premiere and caused a stir. As reported by THR, Lyonne is set to make her feature directorial debut on the film from a script she wrote with Brit Marling and both are on board to star. Set in the world of immersive video games and said to blend live-action and game elements, Uncanny Valley centers on a teenage girl named Mila who becomes unmoored by a hugely popular AR video game in a parallel present. Partners on the project -- designed to offer a "radical new cinematic experience," per an Asteria representative -- include technology innovator Jaron Lanier, the AI-based studio Asteria (founded by Lyonne with partner Bryn Mooser) and Moonvalley. It was obvious that the buzz had reached Lyonne, who was quick to defend the project during her time with THR. "Of course the movie's going to be shot like a real movie. Now I'm really threatening to just shoot it on 35 [mm] or something to prove the point because [we are using] real-life human cinematographers and production designers and all that, of course," explained Lyonne. "I'm a Mr. Moviefone. There's nothing I love more than movies. Cinema is my very celluloid blood that runs through these veins. I love nothing more than filmmaking, the filmmaking community, the collaboration of it, the tactile fine art of it. I love every aspect of it -- it's so incredible. I understand my own church, in a way, even when the rest of the world doesn't make sense. In no way would I ever want to do anything other than really create some guardrails or a new language." The guardrails she referenced relate to how Moonvalley relies on an AI model called "Marey" that is built on data that has been copyright cleared, unlike other viral industry leaders. "I have this new studio that I founded, Asteria, with Bryn Mooser, and we found these amazing engineers at Moonvalley, and they agreed off this idea of why is every model dirty, like Runway and OpenAI? And why are they building it off of stolen data? Why do cell phones just have stolen data? It's a problem," Lyonne said. "What's so incredible about Marey is that it's the first underlying foundational model that you build on top of that is actually on copyrighted license, and you can go in with your concept artist and your storyboard artist and start building out a world." Lyonne then praised her collaborators like Marling and Lanier, the latter of whom she called "a pretty heavy hitter in this space" and a "philosophical, ethical guy." She added: "We're getting to really find these sort of rules of play and start to understand that there might be a way to actually have some artist protection and carve out within all this that keeps us doing the thing that we love." Speaking of that affection, Lyonne then recalled how close she was with the iconic filmmaker Nora Ephron. "She was a real mentor of mine -- I played a lot of poker -- and she would say, 'Whatever you do, don't be a female filmmaker. You're only allowed one mistake and they never let you work again.' Of course she made so many hits that wasn't exactly true, but it was an interesting lesson about the opportunities that are given or not. I really see this as a way to get a chance to make those sort of Avengers-style sequences or something that are essentially green screen and CGI. That's mostly what [AI] is going to be used for, and that's what the word 'hybrid' means here."