Brad Pitt’s F1 movie might be the talk of the town right now, and that’s for good reason. Apple’s Formula 1 movie has everything it needs to become a blockbuster success this summer. That’s what most reviews say, and it’s good news for Apple TV+, which needed this kind of theatrical win.
But F1 isn’t the only summer movie I’ve been dying to see. Liam Neeson’s The Naked Gun is a must-see in my book, especially if you loved the original trilogy starring Leslie Nielsen.
The Naked Gun is set in the present, about 30 years after Frank Drebin Sr.’s adventures. Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr., and that alone is enough to get me excited for the upcoming comedy. Add the trailers, and The Naked Gun gets even more intriguing. That being said, it does make you wonder if they packed all the best gags into the trailer.
I’m hoping the actual movie is just as packed with nonsense as the Leslie Nielsen films, which had audiences laughing at almost every scene. The latest marketing trick from The Naked Gun team gives me hope that the remake can live up to its hilarious predecessors. They released a new poster for the movie that brilliantly mocks AI at the perfect time.
The AI boom kicked off when ChatGPT went viral in late 2022. After that, every major tech company shifted gears and focused heavily on AI. We’ve also seen plenty of startups jump into the mix with some impressive results.
Less than three years later, genAI software is light years ahead of what was possible back in 2022 and 2023. AI image and video generators can now create stunningly realistic content. Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and others only need a text prompt to produce images that look like real photos.
Video tools like Google’s Veo 3 can generate footage good enough for professional creators to actually use in films. Veo 3 also adds background noise and dialogue and syncs it all, making the result feel like a real movie.
This AI wave threatens jobs with every new breakthrough. GenAI is becoming more common in the entertainment world, and not everyone’s thrilled about it. Throw in the ongoing legal battles around copyright and AI, and you get a clear picture of where we are nearly three years after ChatGPT exploded online.
We’re also just a month away from The Naked Gun premiere.
With that in mind, the marketing team at Paramount Pictures dropped this gem of a poster for The Naked Gun, which takes a clever shot at AI.
The poster
“NO AI WAS USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS POSTER,” the poster reads in all-caps. Below it, there’s a photo of Liam Neeson’s Frank Drebin Jr. staring menacingly at the camera while holding a gun with an 8-finger right hand. “He has a firm grip of the law,” reads the tagline.
That’s the clever AI joke baked into the poster. It would’ve worked even without the current obsession over AI, artificial general intelligence, and AI superintelligence. But in today’s climate, it lands even better.
If you’ve kept up with AI developments, you know these models tend to hallucinate. Early AI image generators often produced visual errors, like the 8-finger hand holding a gun in this poster.
When you gave the AI a prompt, it might create images with weird mistakes. Some of the most ridiculous AI-generated visuals went viral, usually because of how bad the AI was at rendering hands, feet, or fingers.
Things have improved a lot since then. People in AI-generated images now usually have the right number of limbs and fingers. Just a few days ago, a tool called Higgsfield Soul went viral for producing lifelike AI images that look almost like real photographs.
To make a poster like this with AI, you’d probably have to tell the model to give the hand 8 fingers. Some generators wouldn’t allow a Liam Neeson likeness, but a few might pull it off.
The new The Naked Gun poster makes fun of all that with one simple visual goof. At the same time, it’s a not-so-subtle reminder that AI is still a hot-button issue in Hollywood. I’m not surprised the poster went viral over the weekend. The tweet racked up nearly seven million views.
The Naked Gun premieres on August 1st, so there’s still time for more last-minute gags from the movie.
