Iron Man's cinematographer has already shot an AI film. He says AI will come for Marvel's effects, not its stars

When Matthew Libatique stepped out of the airport in Mallorca, he held off on the greetings so he could look at the light. The autumn sun was hitting pink buildings and the water before it dropped behind the mountains, and the cinematographer behind Black Swan, A Star Is Born and the first two Iron Man films wanted a minute with it before anything else.

He was on the island to collect the Cinematography Icon Award at Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, and the conversation soon turned to the least natural light in cinema. Speaking to Variety's Rafa Sales Ross in a piece published on Friday 30 October, Libatique said AI "won't replace cinema," then added: "What it could replace is Marvel." He also said he doesn't think Marvel "will ever use AI actors," and that he and his longest collaborator, Darren Aronofsky, are about to test the technology before their next film together.

That last part needs one correction before it travels any further. Variety's subhead says the two are "currently 'testing'" AI, and several write-ups ran with it. His actual words are "We're doing a test soon." The test hasn't happened yet, the film has no title, and nobody has said which tools are involved.

What he actually said about Marvel

The headline quote is two sentences joined by Variety's narration, and the word "VFX" in Variety's headline and X post is the paper's gloss. In the body, Libatique names Marvel and DC as studios that "make these giant films and technology is clearly a part of it," and only then gets to effects: "They make their movies for so much money, I can understand why, through visual effects, they are going to have to employ AI to curb some of their costs."

The other half of his argument is about faces. "They've always been able to get a personality into the characters, whether it's Chris Evans or Robert Downey Jr.; these people become these characters people fall in love with," he said, adding: "I don't think there's going to be a Tilly Norwood Batwoman or Black Widow." Batwoman is a DC character, and Robert Pattinson, the actor he says no AI could match, plays DC's Batman, so his line covers superhero franchises in general rather than one studio's plans.

It's worth reading as a prediction, because that's what it is. Libatique last shot for Marvel Studios on Iron Man 2 in 2010 and claims no inside knowledge of its pipeline. Still, the split he describes is already on paper at Marvel's parent company. Disney's three-year Sora licensing deal with OpenAI, announced on Thursday 11 December 2025, lets fans generate short videos with more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters, and it "does not include any talent likenesses or voices." The costumes and creatures are licensed for AI, while the stars stay out of it.

He was less generous about the film that green screen made famous. Zack Snyder's 300, he said, "was basically our early AI movie," which is a stretch: virtual sets and generative AI are different tools, a point ComicBook.com made too. His broader claim is about audiences. "Nobody's going to make 'Sentimental Value' with AI," he said, so he would "pump the brakes on the idea that it is going to replace us all."

He has already shot one

Variety's piece buries the most useful fact for anyone working with these tools. Libatique is the credited director of photography on Goodnight Lamby, Dustin Yellin's short produced by Aronofsky's AI studio Primordial Soup, which played Cannes Classics on Tuesday 19 May 2026. Variety calls it "Goodbye Lamby", but the Cannes listing, Primordial Soup and IndieWire all use Goodnight Lamby.

The film turns Yellin's glass sculpture into an undersea world, mixing live action, photography, collage-style animation and Google's Veo 3 video model. Head animator Ricardo Villavicencio told IndieWire the team would "prompt each of the elements to be animated, isolated with a green background, and then we rotoscope and compose everything digitally." That is a compositing workflow with generated pieces in it, not a single prompt that spits out a film.

Libatique's own memory of the shoot is the detail creators should keep. The person doing the prompting came to him for real light, and he said there were "things that she needed physically from me for her to create a shortcut for prompting." "It was easier to place a light in the hole in the roof than it is for her to try to convince [the machine] to do what she wants." A practical lamp beat another round of rewording, and the cinematographer became part of the model's input.

More, or less

The planned test with Aronofsky starts from a disagreement between the two of them. Libatique said he has "a belief that the more you give to the system, the more it's gonna have what you're looking for," adding that Aronofsky "wants to see how little you can do" and that "we both want to learn more about it."

Anyone who has built a reference board knows that argument. One side feeds the model real plates, lit sets and camera moves, and the other side tests how far a sparse prompt can go. Libatique insists the film itself will be made the old way, describing a set where Aronofsky gets "on his knees, and he's gonna move everything around with his fingers." What they are discussing, he said, is "using the camera the way we use the camera and then see what this technology can do."

Aronofsky's record with Primordial Soup gives both sides of that test some history. The studio partnered with Google DeepMind in May 2025 and released On This Day... 1776 on Time's YouTube channel in January, where the first episodes were widely panned. At the Cannes AI for Talent Summit on Saturday 16 May, Aronofsky said the improvement since then was "not just the models" but the pipeline and the artists. Libatique said Aronofsky "has been given money to be able to explore this" without saying by whom, and the DeepMind partnership is the backing on the record.

The part that bothers him

Libatique isn't selling anything here, and he says so. He has used AI in post to fix glare, which he prefers to "sending it to another country so that some people who are getting $2 an hour can do it," and he admits it "definitely took some work away." His question is where it stops: "When does it start really replacing people?"

In a separate interview with the Palma daily Ultima Hora, published a day before Variety's on Thursday 29 October, he put the worry in sharper terms. In our translation, AI gives him "an existential annoyance" because the industry is trying to make a film that needs 300 people with 150, while pouring money into the 150 people who may be building the technology. In that interview the film nobody will make with AI is Jordan Firstman's Club Kid, not Sentimental Value, so the exact wording belongs to each paper.

He is angriest about style. Twice, he said, people have sent him AI videos told to shoot "in the style of Matthew Libatique," which he called "absolutely offensive". He rejects the premise that he has one fixed look for anyone to copy, and turns the question back on the tools: "Who is in charge of prompting? Who has taste?"

On X, Variety's post had about 55,000 views and 30 replies by Monday morning, and two fan-account reposts drew about 56,000 more. That is a modest conversation. The replies leaned skeptical of AI in Marvel effects, mostly on the grounds that cheaper effects would make the films look cheaper.

What it means for AI creators

Read past the Marvel line and Libatique is describing where generative work gets hired first and where it doesn't.

• Effects-heavy franchise work is where he expects studios to spend less, and Disney has already licensed characters, costumes and environments for AI while keeping actors out of the deal.
• On a real AI short, the prompter asked the cinematographer for a practical light because it was faster than prompting. Makers who can light a space, shoot a plate and drive a model are the people a test like Aronofsky's will need.
• The more-versus-less argument is still open. Rich reference and real camera work against minimal prompting is the debate inside most generative filmmaking workflows, and his test will put both on one set.
• Style prompts that name a living artist are what made him angriest, and they are an easy way to lose the craft people you want on your side.

Our take: the crews shrinking from 300 to 150 are where this gets decided. People who bring both the camera and the model to a set have a real claim on the work that is left, and that claim is worth fighting for.

Timeline

• Date: May 2025. Event: Primordial Soup announces a partnership with Google DeepMind on short films combining live action and AI; Source: Deadline
• Date: Thu 11 Dec 2025. Event: Disney and OpenAI sign a three-year Sora licensing deal covering 200+ characters, with no talent likenesses or voices, plus a $1 billion equity investment; Source: The Walt Disney Company
• Date: Thu 29 Jan 2026. Event: Primordial Soup debuts On This Day... 1776 on Time's YouTube channel; the first episodes are widely panned; Source: Deadline
• Date: Sat 16 May 2026. Event: Aronofsky at the Cannes AI for Talent Summit: the gains are "not just the models"; Source: Deadline
• Date: Tue 19 May 2026. Event: Goodnight Lamby, shot by Libatique and made with Veo 3, plays Cannes Classics; Source: Festival de Cannes; IndieWire
• Date: Wed 23 Sep 2026. Event: Evolution Mallorca names Libatique for its Cinematography Icon Award; Source: Variety; Screen
• Date: Wed 28 Oct 2026. Event: Festival opens; Ultima Hora interviews Libatique in Palma; Source: Ultima Hora
• Date: Thu 29 Oct 2026. Event: Ultima Hora publishes its interview; Source: Ultima Hora
• Date: Fri 30 Oct 2026. Event: Variety publishes the "could replace Marvel" interview; Source: Variety
• Date: Fri 30 Oct to Sat 31 Oct 2026. Event: World of Reel, ComicBook.com and fan accounts restate Variety; Source: Each outlet

Sources and what is unconfirmed: Variety, Rafa Sales Ross, 30 Oct 2026, read in full; Ultima Hora, 29 Oct 2026, Spanish quotes in our translation; IndieWire, 30 May 2026; Festival de Cannes and Primordial Soup Goodnight Lamby pages; Deadline, 29 Jan and 16 May 2026; The Walt Disney Company release, 11 Dec 2025; ComicBook.com, 31 Oct 2026; Variety's X post read through the X API on 2 Nov 2026. Unconfirmed: the name of the next Aronofsky and Libatique film, the scope, tools and date of their test, and who funds Aronofsky's exploration beyond the DeepMind partnership. We heard no audio of either interview, so quotes are as each outlet printed them. We did not seek comment from Marvel, Primordial Soup or Libatique's representatives.

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