Snyder Draws the Line Against AI: No Machine-Made Plans

Zack Snyder spent twenty years filming in front of the green screen. So when he talks about where artificial intelligence has to stop, it’s worth listening.

The topic appeared on Happy Sad Confused, journalist Josh Horowitz’s podcast, in an interview recorded at the Toronto Film Festival and published on September 17, 2026. Josh wanted to know if he sees AI as a tool or as something to run away from. The first reaction was to remember that The Last Photograph, the new film, has almost no visual effects. The second was to admit the obvious: he has ChatGPT on his cell phone, like everyone else.

Then he got to the point. His fear has an address: the day when the people on the screen are not people. And the rule he proposes is simple on purpose.

The humans need to be human.

Zack Snyder on Happy Sad Confused, 09/17/2026, at 50:50

He knows the boundary is slippery. Traditional visual effects and effects made by AI already mix, and it will become increasingly difficult to point out where one ends and the other begins. That’s why he prefers a ruler that doesn’t depend on any technology: real people on stage, and no plans created by machines. A plan, for him, is a decision made by someone who was there watching.

The most beautiful part is the bet. Snyder thinks that the answer to AI will be the return of handmade, in the same way that happens with ceramics, with any handcrafted object that gains value precisely when everything around it is mass produced. And that the movie theater can become a place with a stamp: what shows there was made by people, for people. He linked this to the charm of kids with IMAX and 70mm film, which he called artisan ingredients.

It may seem like nostalgic talk. But it comes from a guy who just shot an entire feature film holding his own camera, without a giant crew around him, just to prove to himself that he still knew. He is not theorizing. He’s telling you what he did last month.