For film workers, Matthew Libatique’s coming artificial intelligence experiment with Darren Aronofsky centres on a technology he says is being used to reduce the number of people needed, while drawing heavy investment for the people developing it.
Speaking to the press at Evolution Mallorca, where he received the Cinematography Icon Award, Libatique said he and Aronofsky were testing AI ahead of their next film together.
Libatique is a three-time Oscar-nominee cinematographer whose collaboration with Aronofsky began with their 1993 AFI short ‘Protozoa’. Their films together include ‘Pi,’ ‘Requiem for a Dream,’ ‘The Fountain,’ ‘Black Swan,’ ‘Noah,’ ‘mother!,’ ‘The Whale’ and ‘Caught Stealing.’
Aronofsky launched the AI studio Primordial Soup last year in collaboration with Google DeepMind. In summer 2026, he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a $15 million equity raise for Primordial Soup.
Libatique has already met the technology in his own work. He shot Dustin Yellin’s short film ‘Goodbye Lamby,’ which used artificial intelligence, and has used AI in post-production for jobs including correcting glare.
He has also received AI videos on two occasions in which a machine had been instructed to shoot in his style. “How come everything I do is out for grabs? That’s absolutely offensive,” he said.
At Mallorca, Libatique described a test shaped by two approaches to giving a machine creative control. “We’ve discussed it. We’re doing a test soon. I have a belief that the more you give to the system, the more it’s gonna have what you’re looking for. He wants to see how little you can do; we both want to learn more about it.”
The eventual shoot, he said, will remain a conventional physical production. “We’re gonna make it like a movie. We’re gonna stand on set. Darren is gonna get on his knees, and he’s gonna move everything around with his fingers, and he’ll do what he usually does.”
That human presence extends to performers. Libatique said he did not think Marvel “will ever use AI actors.” He credits stars including Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. with creating characters audiences come to love.
Libatique drew his sharpest distinction over what AI could alter. He said it “won’t replace cinema”, then added: “What it could replace is Marvel.” In 2023, Method Studios made the opening credits of ‘Secret Invasion’ with AI. Downey has said in the past that he would sue future executives if Marvel replicated his likeness with AI.
Libatique called himself “agnóstico” (agnostic) on the subject of AI’s improvements. His concern is less about whether the tools will advance than about an industry he says is cutting its workforce while funding a small group building the technology.
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