The legendary German director Werner Herzog had a few choice words about other so-called “filmmakers” who use AI to imitate their inspirations — one of those inspirations being himself.
In an interview with IndieWire, the 84-year-old — whose wide-ranging filmography includes 1982’s “Fitzcarraldo,” 2009’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” and 1979’s “Nosferatu the Vampyre“ — was asked about a 2025 movie called “About a Hero,” which made heavy use of AI to evoke the style of his films. It gets even more on the nose than that: on top of using an AI-generated script trained on his movies, it also featured AI-deepfaked Herzog as the narrator.
The flesh and blood director didn’t sound impressed.
“The intention of this young filmmaker was never to remake any [of my films], but making something in the spirit. And I immediately said, ‘You will fail. It is such a stupid idea,’” he said, in what we can imagine was his trademark husky voice.
