Jon Erwin Isn’t Hiding from AI: The ‘Young Washington’ Director on How AI Can Save Jobs and Bolster Collaboration
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- Jon Erwin directed "Young Washington," which contains about 100 AI-augmented VFX shots including costumes and cannon fire, as confirmed by a Variety report that followed Twitter users spotting AI use in the credits.
- "Young Washington" opened to $20.8 million on a $20 million budget, beat "Supergirl," became Erwin's biggest opening weekend, and already has a sequel announced despite the AI controversy.
- Innovative Dreams, Erwin's studio on the Manhattan Beach lot that also houses James Cameron, uses AI to deliver near real-time visual effects on a massive volume stage.
- Erwin calls his approach "synthesizing" rather than "generating" — AI augments assets he can prove ownership of (locations, actors, wardrobe), as exemplified by an icy-river sequence filmed with actors in a 50-foot trench and a cannon-fire battle shot.
- For "The Old Stories: Moses," Erwin's team used volumetric scanning ("gaussian splatting") in Greece and Spain to create 3-D renders projected onto volume stages, producing VFX for far less than the hundreds of thousands of dollars "The Mandalorian" required.
- Erwin stacks multiple AI tools on top of traditional software like Unreal Engine and Nuke, saying "the stack was where the quality was" and arguing this enables "non-linear filmmaking" where filming, generating, and editing can happen in the same day.
- Erwin supports mandates from both studios and unions to retrain professionals on AI tools, arguing this may be the best way to bring production jobs back to Los Angeles.
Why it matters: Erwin's $20.8M opening on a $20M budget — achieved despite the Variety-confirmed AI controversy — shows disclosed AI use didn't punish the film commercially. His stack-based workflow (AI layered on Unreal Engine and Nuke) and 'synthesizing' of owned assets offers a copyright-safe template that directly contradicts what he calls the 'race to the bottom' he sees from other AI advocates.
