He wrote this film before AI was a hot topic. Now it’s all the rage.

The new film “The Creator” takes place in a future war raging between humans and AI. (This story first aired on All Things Considered on September 29, 2023.)

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Our next story is about a very timely new Hollywood movie.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE CREATOR”)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) The next marvelous advancement in robotics is artificial intelligence.

RASCOE’s Mandalit del Barco spoke to the writer-director of “The Creator,” a science fiction drama about AI.

MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: The story is set on Earth in the year 2070. Humans in the West are at war, trying to wipe out robots in the East.

(SOUNDBITE OF WHIRRING MACHINERY)

DEL BARCO: You can hear and see whirring machinery at the base of the robots’ skulls. Otherwise, they look, move and cry like humans. Some are even more compassionate than us. And the one everyone is after has superpowers. She can grow. And we meet her as an adorable 6-year-old.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE CREATOR”)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) What do you want, sweetie?

MADELEINE YUNA VOYLES: (As Alphie) The robots to be free.

DEL BARCO: British filmmaker Gareth Edwards says he started writing his screenplay in 2018, before AI was in the zeitgeist.

GARETH EDWARDS: I really was using robots and AI as a metaphor for people who are different, you know, the other and the idea of, like, how we always reject people who are different and fear them, and vice versa, they do the same to us. And when I first sort of pitched this to the studio, the main note I always got back was, but why would we ban AI? Like, it’s such a positive thing, you know? And it’s sort of hilarious to be now where we are.

DEL BARCO: Edwards sees advantages and disadvantages to AI. He is, after all, a visual effects whiz who wrote the 2010 sci-fi horror film “Monsters.” He also directed a Godzilla remake and the “Star Wars” film “Rogue One.” For “The Creator,” which he shot on locations in Southeast…