Eli Roth Admits AI Use in 'Ice Cream Man' After 'Misspoke' — SkimNews
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- Eli Roth admitted on Tuesday that AI was used in "a very small portion of a few scenes" in his upcoming horror film "Ice Cream Man," set to premiere Aug. 7, after social media posts claimed the technology was used extensively throughout the film.
- Roth said "I misspoke" after previously telling Polygon he personally drew the film's animated sequence — featuring a cartoon that hypnotizes children into becoming murderers — inspired by a 1920s-era Mickey Mouse cartoon, before animators helped make it "a little more fluid" with an "old-timey jittery feel."
- Social media users specifically pointed to the involvement of AI visual effects studio Dark Half as evidence contradicting Roth's earlier framing of the process.
- Representatives for Roth and Dark Half did not respond to Variety's initial request for comment before Roth's clarification.
- The "Ice Cream Man" walkback follows identical controversies around "Late Night with the Devil" (2023), whose directors Cameron and Colin Cairne had to explain AI-generated images post-release, and "Stop That Train", where director Adam Shankman claimed the film featured "ZERO shots conceived by AI" amid backlash over Ryan Kavanaugh's Acme AI and FX firm's involvement.
Why it matters: Roth's reversal is the third such AI-disclosure walkback in a recent horror-film cluster, joining 'Late Night with the Devil' and 'Stop That Train' — a pattern showing that obfuscating AI use, rather than disclosing it, reliably triggers social media backlash and forces post-hoc corrections before or after release.
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