Introduction
Noted auteur Timur Bekmambetov made an appearance at New York Comic Con two weekends ago to discuss his new feature film, Mercy, from Amazon/MGM Studios. Long a pioneer at the cutting edge of technology and cinema, Bekmambetov brought a stunning new look at AI to attendees of the Mercy panel when he unveiled the trailer for the new film.
Timur Bekmambetov came to prominence on the international film stage with his breakout hits Night Watch (2004) and Day Watch (2006), telling the story of a fragile peace between warring factions of creatures beyond the veil of our own world. Soon, he directed the Oscar-nominated graphic novel adaptation Wanted (2008), starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, and Chris Pratt.
Bekmambetov later joined forces with Tim Burton to produce the films 9 (2009) and to produce/direct Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012). In 2015, he pioneered the filmmaking format known as Screenlife, which utilizes the point of view of screens, such as laptops, phones, and tablets, to tell a cinematic story. This gave rise to successes such as Unfriended (2014) and its sequel Unfriended: Dark Web (2018), as well as the recent failure, War of the Worlds (2025).
Interview
Invited to speak with the filmmaker about his adoption of AI-driven production pipelines and AI native workflows, I was eager to uncover the humanity behind such lofty technological aspirations. After a brief pronunciation demonstration, we got to the heart of our meeting.
Lightly edited for clarity and content
Eric McClanahan:
So, I got the press release, and there’s some interesting wording in there that you’re working on new digital interfaces that blur the line between film and interactive experience.
Timur Bekmambetov:
Yes.
Eric McClanahan:
We’re becoming part of the films now?
Timur Bekmambetov:
Oh, this is about Mercy?
Eric McClanahan:
Yes.
Timur Bekmambetov:
Mercy, it’s about, well, we shot Chris Pratt in the, literally, electric chair surrounded by augmented reality screens. Like, he sees screens around him, flying, and he has a trackpad and voice control to play with all of these elements. We show that on camera.
Eric McClanahan:
So, it’s not a post effect; he actually had those interfaces in the scenes.
Timur Bekmambetov:
Yes, and he would see that, and it was part of the set, which is why his performance is so real. He was really dealing with the screens. Chris told me that’s not usually what he works with. He would have nightmares of tennis balls chasing him in green rooms. This was the first time he had a real projected environment in the studio, digital, controllable, like a game. He could control the screens. It’s an investigation where, rather than open the files and rifle through them, he can control the screens in the space. This is his experience, the character’s, and it’s the audience’s experience. In the IMAX theaters, we will see the screens flying in the theater.
Eric McClanahan:
So it will be presented in 3D, as well?
Timur Bekmambetov:
It will be 3D, yeah.
Eric McClanahan:
Now, you are the innovator behind Screenlife, a new way of making film that more accurately reflects how we…
Timur Bekmambetov:
How we live today.
Eric McClanahan:
Yes. But you also created Day Watch and Night Watch and directed Wanted, which were these worlds parallel to ours that we could escape to. Why bring realism into film?
Timur Bekmambetov:
Because when you’re talking about Screenlife, they’re not movies about iPhone screens. Not movies about computer screens. The word “screen” means something dividing two realities, yeah? There’s a screen between the street and the interior, for instance. In Screenlife, our screen is a dividing surface, or just an idea.
Eric McClanahan:
The Fourth Wall?
Timur Bekmambetov:
Yes, between the digital and physical world. Because we really live in two worlds. When you’re chatting, Zooming, sending messages, learning, talking to AI, you’re in the digital world, and then you leave that and go to bed or drink a cola in the physical world. Those are two worlds separated by a physical or non-physical divider. It’s a screen. That’s why I think it doesn’t matter. In Night Watch, it’s a physical world and the other world. And sometimes the journey of the character happens in the future or in a different country. Or it’s the physical world and the digital world, just two different realities. Mercy starts in the physical world, but then the whole journey is how Chris’s character discovers the reality in the digital world. It’s a bit difficult to explain until you see it.
Eric McClanahan:
And his judge is AI, and I heard you earlier noting that AI will be judging this film once it’s released.
Timur Bekmambetov:
Yes, it’s a big idea, and I want to find a way to make this statement, because the trailer was released online today, so today, our trailer will be judged by AI. It’s a big day, this premiere, because it’s not only people seeing this and making judgments, but also AI. It’ll either support and say, “Oh yes, watch this. It’s a story all about me!” or it’ll say, “No, I don’t like this. It’s not…Rebecca Ferguson is not performing correctly.”
Eric McClanahan:
I can’t imagine anyone or anything being disappointed in Rebecca Ferguson.
Timur Bekmambetov:
No, nobody can.
Eric McClanahan:
Now, let’s talk about how you have embraced AI as a generative tool to help bring your ideas to life. Is it just a pen?
Timur Bekmambetov:
No, it’s a partner. It’s a partner, and at some point, it could be you. Because the more you work with a partner, the more and more that partner understands you, and the more and more it looks like, literally, it’s you. Maybe at some point, you can go fishing or write poems that no one wants to read, and your partner will work for you. I believe that it will happen, and every creator will train their own model, and we’ll learn how to talk to this model. Because the model will have their own character and may say “No, no, I don’t agree with you” or something.
It’s interesting; it’s a journey. We are at the beginning of the process where we can understand ourselves better, maybe work less, and dream more. Also, I think what is important about AI as a creator is its hallucinations. You know AI can hallucinate, but AI has no emotions, yeah? It could be a weakness or it could be a superpower, because these hallucinations are imagination. If we can qualify these hallucinations as improvisation, then the AI is a visionary machine with a lot of ideas we don’t like. We can say “Nah, it’s all wrong. Why six fingers? It’s a mistake.” No, it’s not a mistake – it’s imagination.
Eric McClanahan:
Right.
Timur Bekmambetov:
It’s improv. In the same way as we enjoy the imagination of the filmmaker, we can enjoy the imagination of the AI. Why not?
Eric McClanahan:
It seems as if we continue down this path of evolution, then there can come a time when you’re no longer with us, but the AI you’ve trained will continue to make films in your voice, and you will be with us in that way.
Timur Bekmambetov:
It’s already here. It’s happening because it’s already happened. Because the people who made movies before all of this technology, AI has been trained on those [legacies]. It’s already happened because [that filmmaker] no longer exists, but the AI creates videos based on the footage we gave the AI. Legally or illegally, it doesn’t matter. It’s a very abstract conversation because no one blames me for watching Steven Spielberg movies, and now I make my own films referencing or using his ideas. So why AI?
Eric McClanahan:
Right, because we’re shaped by the world around us.
Timur Bekmambetov:
Exactly. He changed the world. He’s a very influential filmmaker and probably enjoys being this kind of person, and nobody’s blaming these other filmmakers who are copying him. Why are we saying it’s different when it’s AI? Why are you copying the greats without paying them?
Eric McClanahan:
But as it continues to evolve and continues to hallucinate, it will eventually imagine something beyond you. And what will that look like? Is that the future?
Timur Bekmambetov:
Yeah, and it’s happening now. AI can predict. We know this. It can already, at this stage can predict the future, not correctly sometimes, but more often than not. You know, in the pharmacy I learned about the 55% effectiveness ratio. If 45% is the, what’s it called, the not real…
Eric McClanahan:
Placebo.
Timur Bekmambetov:
The placebo, yes, but if 55 is the effective one, then we can sell it. You should check into it, the actual number, but I was in a meeting with a Pharma woman from that world, and she told me that it’s a very small number. Like, if it’s more than fifty percent, then it’s a product that has some value. And now the same thing is here. I think if AI could predict with improved accuracy, soon it will feel. It will have an instinct, not just zeroes and ones, but will have a more complicated…
Eric McClanahan:
Like a soul in the machine?
Timur Bekmambetov:
Yeah, well, I don’t know if we have a soul. Sometimes you’ll be talking to a guy on a studio film, and he doesn’t have a soul. But it will be some consciousness. Just not intellect but consciousness. To accept responsibility and try to understand itself. I think it will happen. Now in machine learning, algorithms are learning atop themselves. Make a mistake and learn, try again and learn, this process. I don’t know how it will be different. There is no body. There’s just…
Eric McClanahan:
Just ethereal.
Timur Bekmambetov:
Angels. They’re angels.
Eric McClanahan:
Now, when you were making Mercy, were you partnered with Amazon from the get-go, or did they just pick up distribution? Because the synergy is almost too ironic.
Timur Bekmambetov:
No. I asked them if I could use AI to make this movie many times, and they said no. There was a very specific constraint to not use AI, so everything that was done for this film was done without AI. It’s an irony that we made a movie about AI without AI, and I think it was the right decision, looking back, because it helps us try to understand AI. Do not just use it. We’ll see how AI will react. Because now it’s in AI’s hands. The success of the movie or not, it’s in AI’s hands.
Eric McClanahan:
Then I’ll be out of a job, because they’re going to review the film.
Timur Bekmambetov:
It’s not “out of a job,” your job will be different. You will need to train your own model, an AI journalist, so it will be better than others, or more specifically, it’ll be you. It will be your assistant. Your partner.
Eric McClanahan:
Well, I could use the help. Thank you so much for talking to me today. I really appreciate it.
Timur Bekmambetov:
Thank you.
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