Image: From the movie Sharktopus
The B-movies could soon become both sillier and more real, all thanks to AI. B-movies are, by definition, low-budget, so we are used to cheap special effects. With AI, they could be cheap yet better-looking. AI could make spectacles more spectacular, generate even better mutant monsters (like the ones they do in Monster Hunters, an AI streaming show), and have AI actors. Will that kill their charm, and will they lose the core of their B-moviness? They are defined by production limits, and those limits could now disappear. This super fun philosophical question came to me while reading Attack of the B Movies: Essays on SyFy Original Films.
Most people are familiar with Sharknado, starring Ian Ziering (Steve from Beverly Hills, 90210, one of my favourite shows in the 90s) and Tara Reid. As I read in the Attack of the B Movies, the movie was caught in the perfect storm of coincidences that made it a cult film: it was July 11, 2013, Shark Week, and a slow night for television - and Twitter went crazy, generating 5000 tweets a minute. Soon after, celebrities posted photos of themselves watching Sharknado, which became a series and spawned spinoffs such as Lavantula and 2 Lava 2 Lantula.
B-movies were originally produced to accompany A movies in movie theatres in the 1930s/40s, as companies needed a way to attract audiences, after and during the Great Depression. As Blair writes in his The Battle for the Bs: 1950s Hollywood and the Rebirth of Low-Budget Cinema, “B-movies were made with the intent of generating predictable profit margins from modestly budgeted films that satisfied a marketplace need for increased quantities of cinematic entertainment.” Not much changed.
The Asylum, the company that produced Sharknado, has a business model centred on producing as many low-budget films as quickly as possible. With new tools, a 99-Headed Shark could be generated in a minute. Does that mean they’ll produce more movies in the same period, or will they make the same number of movies that just look better? Whatever they do, B-movies as we know them will change, as AI becomes an important part of the process, affecting creative decisions and the final product. I believe that with AI, we will see a new generation of B-movies made by emerging (AI) filmmakers. Joe Dante, who directed Gremlins, started out with B-movies such as Piranha (1978), which I remember watching in the movie theatre in the 80s.
The crucial question is what will fans do? B-movies have loyal fandoms, large communities, and extremely passionate fans. I am not a big fan, but I got excited about movies like 5 Headed Shark Attack or Ice Spiders. Passionate also means fans will not “forgive” laziness if AI were used in such a way, which is interesting, as badness is an important part of the B-movies. Everything else needs to fit, too. It’s probably safe to assume that this specific audience will not care that much whether it is AI or not, as they are used to CGI of different kinds, but they will keep an eye on charm, “too bad it’s good” factor, and overall effort.
With AI, we could see a new generation of B-movies, powered by technological advances. Will they be good? Well, what is “good” in a B-movie? For me, it’s wild, unimaginable plots - especially mutant ones, such as Piranhaconda or Sharktopus. So, I am expecting nothing less than Sharktopiranhaconda.
Update (20 January): I’ve just discovered Solar Storm - The Final Current, a project that may point to what AI-driven B-movies could soon look like.
Feel free to share your thoughts and favorite B-Movies in the comments!
I think that better headline of this piece could be "The gradual...yet inevitable extinction of B-movies" :) very interesting piece...and I agree...the line between B production and A production with AI i surely going to be thinner and thinner...