Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Mike Redmond | News | February 13, 2026
When it comes to movies, I’m easily the least refined partaker of cinema at Pajiba. Don’t get me wrong, I ran the stereotypical late 90s/early aughts college student gamut of devouring indie and classic films thanks to managing a Blockbuster and scoring a DVD player for Christmas. I spent an entire summer doing nothing but working and catching up on all the movies my sheltered evangelical upbringing missed while drinking cheap beer alone in my tiny shoebox apartment. It was great! And then time happened.
Have I seen Sinners yet? Nope. One Battle After Another? Also, nope. Wuthering Heights? Probably never. What’s the most recent movie I have seen? Does The Naked Gun reboot count? I rest my case.
That said, I know what slop is even though I contain hot takes like Fantastic Four was better than Superman. Hollywood has never needed AI to make slop, and I should know because I thought Now You See Me would make a good family night movie. I completely forgot what a soulless sack of nothing that film was. (What did slap? The River Wild. Meryl, baby.) Anyway, my long rambling point is that movies need more than just flashy action and constant quips masquerading as dialogue, which is why it tracks that one of the Deadpool writers thinks Hollywood is cooked because of a 15-second AI clip of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise punching each other.
‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ writer Rhett Reese reacts to viral AI video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting:
“I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”
— Pop Crave (@popcrave.com) February 11, 2026 at 4:03 PM
[image or embed]
Does this footage look jarringly realistic? Yes. No arguments there. Does it contain a single ounce of soul or dramatic heft? Sure doesn’t! It’s two dudes punching each other on loop in a generic setting that we’ve seen 1,000 times.
If you go through the comments and quotes, you’ll find all kinds of insightful comments on how this sample probably took thousands of prompts just to make one 15-second clip and how weird it is that it had more camera cuts than Taken. But the bigger picture is that a movie needs more than just two A-list stars pummeling each other. As much as we like to joke about that being a compelling hook, you do need more than that.
Granted, Deadpool & Wolverine’s box office suggests otherwise, which is probably why you have one of its writers saying this after some understandable backlash. Via Twitter:
A post to clarify: I am not at all excited about AI encroaching into creative endeavors. To the contrary, I’m terrified. So many people I love are facing the loss of careers they love. I myself am at risk. When I wrote ‘It’s over,’ I didn’t mean it to sound cavalier or flippant. I was blown away by the Pitt v Cruise video because it is so professional. That’s exactly why I’m scared. My glass half empty view is that Hollywood is about to be revolutionized/decimated. If you truly think the Pitt v Cruise video is unimpressive slop, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But I’m shook.
Oddly, Tom Cruise hasn’t spoken up yet, and you’d think a guy who famously tries to murder himself with every single stunt might have something to say about being replaced by a computer. Then again, this might prove that he truly is an immortal space god. I dunno, man, Hollywood is weird.
