Darren Aronofsky Just Fed His Baby Pics to AI—And Film Twitter Is SCREAMING
Oscar-nominated chaos agent Darren Aronofsky is back—not with a film, but with a full-blown AI startup. Teaming up with Google DeepMind, he’s launched Primordial Soup (yes, that’s the real name), a generative AI venture aimed at keeping artists “in the driver’s seat.” Buckle up. If that sounds like Black Mirror with a Sundance pass, you’re not wrong.
And the first project out of this brave new lab? A short film where director Eliza McNitt fed AI her own baby photos. It’s called Ancestra, and it’s premiering at Tribeca on June 13. Somewhere, Charlie Kaufman just spilled his coffee.
This Isn’t Just a New Tech Toy—It’s a Power Grab
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: The same filmmaker who once made mother!—a biblical fever dream about artistic control—is now preaching AI as the savior of creativity. Wild, right?
Aronofsky’s statement is pure auteur-as-evangelist: comparing generative AI to the invention of the camera, sound, and color. Bold. Maybe too bold. Because while tech has always shaped film, this shift isn’t additive—it’s existential. Cameras didn’t threaten actors. AI might.
Insane detail: The first Primordial Soup-produced film is literally a woman’s rebirth imagined by an algorithm trained on family photos and grief. The uncanny valley isn’t just nearby—it’s gentrified.
Savage comparison? This is Her meets The Tree of Life—if Terrence Malick outsourced his memory to Google Drive.
The Bigger Picture: Hollywood’s AI Gold Rush Is Already Messy
Let’s not pretend Aronofsky is a lone wolf here. Natasha Lyonne’s upcoming debut is a live-action/AI horror hybrid. Blumhouse is in bed with Meta. James Cameron? He joined an AI firm with Napster founder Sean Parker last year and called generative CGI “the next wave.”
This isn’t even the weirdest filmmaker-tech hookup of the decade. Remember when David Lynch made PSAs for quinoa and meditation apps? At least those didn’t risk replacing your VFX team with a laptop running Stable Diffusion.
And while McNitt’s vision for Ancestra sounds poetic—”transforming family archives, emotions, and science into a cinematic experience”—it also sounds like a TED Talk that ends in a deepfake.
As one anonymous Tribeca insider told IndieWire, “We’re one Sundance away from someone giving birth onstage to a CGI fetus voiced by ChatGPT.”
So—Visionary Genius or Dystopian Vibes?
Here’s the line in the sand. Either Aronofsky’s playing 4D chess with the future of storytelling, or he’s opened Pandora’s Photoshop file and let the ghosts of Silicon Valley into the editing bay.
Would you watch Ancestra—or delete your childhood photos just in case? No judgment. (Okay, some judgment.)
