House of David is Prime Video’s new take on a biblical epic, focusing on the rise of David and set in Israel during 1000 BC. The series has not necessarily been met with widespread acclaim, as critics have been mixed on it. However, audiences have latched onto the new Amazon series, garnering it 22 million viewers in its first 17 days. It’s been a hit for the streamer, but a startling revelation made by fans during the latest episode may put some people off from the hit series.
In the opening moments of the sixth episode of the first season of House of David, a pretty extensive origin sequence for Goliath is revealed. It depicts a giant man with large wings meeting a woman. The scale is unlike anything the show has leaned into before, even for a Prime Video production. The creator behind the show, Jon Erwin, has confirmed that AI was largely used as a means to curb production costs and deliver an ambitious opening not deemed monetarily feasible if they had hired artists to make it.
“The entire scene is driven with generative AI tools as the horsepower to the scene. What we found is that these tools work when combined with traditional tools. We had gotten permission to use the technology, we had formed a team around it, and [thought] let’s really go for it.”
The AI programs used included Midjourney, Magnific, Topaz, Runway, and Kling, along with industry-standard VFX tools such as Adobe After Effects. Additionally, House of David did not stop its use of AI in just episode 6 either, as the first season used 72 shots in total that were created with the help of AI tools. For what it’s worth, the co-showrunner confirmed that they used their own imagery created for the series as the basis for AI generation.
“They all have unique strengths. Because I don’t want to generate imagery from scratch. I want to augment assets from my show that I’ve already created. So I can start with images from my show or things that we’ve created – things that we own.”
You can check out the aforementioned Goliath scene in the X post below. Warning, the uncanny use of AI might freak you out (it certainly gave us the ick).
Despite Fierce Opposition, AI Continues To Spread Its Influence Across the Industry
Despite much of Hollywood remaining adamant against the use of AI in movies and television, that has not stopped major studios from using the emerging technology to cut costs and increase profits. Marvel Studios had already used it for the controversial intro sequence for Samuel L. Jackson’s Disney+ event series, Secret Invasion. Disney has planned to incorporate AI in their processes for quite some time, whether that be for strictly internal or external purposes. Meanwhile, audiences continue to learn about small uses of AI throughout select projects, including Late Night With the Devil and the Oscar-nominated film The Brutalist.
The latest news from the AI landscape is that AMC Theatres recently closed a deal to distribute a Swedish UFO comedy in the United States using an AI-generated English dub. It is not the first time a project has used AI to help translate or visually change the way actors speak to suit another language. However, it could be the most notable use of such technology on the big screen thus far.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
