Tom Cruise in a 'Physical Fight' With Brad Pitt... The AI Video That Shocked Hollywood

Spread of 15-second video created with ByteDance AI
U.S. movie association and actors’ union push back over “copyright infringement”

An AI video showing American movie actors Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt engaged in a fistfight has spread rapidly, sending shockwaves through Hollywood.

On the 15th (local time), according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Axios, Variety and others, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) issued a statement claiming that “Sidance 2.0 has massively used U.S. copyrighted works without authorization,” and demanded an immediate halt to the infringement. The industry, stunned that movie-quality footage can now be generated from simple text prompts, is mounting a strong backlash.

At the premiere of the film 'F1 the Movie' held in London, United Kingdom, in June last year, actors Tom Cruise (left) and Brad Pitt met and posed. Photo by AFP Yonhap News

Earlier, a 15-second video posted on social media by film director Robinson Lowry went viral, raising alarm across the film industry. Lowry is an Irish director known for works such as the sci-fi horror film “Planet Virus.”

The clip he shared shows Cruise and Pitt trading punches in a fight on a rooftop. Lowry stated that the video “was created in Sidance 2 using a two-line prompt.” Sidance 2.0 is an AI video-generation model released on the 7th by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

Director Robinson Lowry posted on social media a fight video featuring Cruise Tom and Pitt Brad. He said it was an AI video made with Sidance 2.0. X (formerly Twitter)

Disney also sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, claiming that Sidance has infringed on its intellectual property (IP), including “Star Wars” and “Marvel.” The letter is reported to include examples of AI-generated videos featuring characters such as Spider-Man, Darth Vader, Grogu, and Peter Griffin. David Singer, an attorney representing Disney, criticized the company for “taking IP as if smashing a display case and stealing it,” pointing out that the infringement was intentional and on a vast scale.

On the same day, the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA also condemned ByteDance, calling it “blatant copyright infringement.” The union said, “This infringement includes the unauthorized use of our members’ voices and likenesses. This is unacceptable and undermines human actors’ ability to make a living,” adding, “Sidance 2.0 ignores the law, ethics, industry standards, and the basic principle of consent. Responsible AI development must come with accountability, but none of that is present here.”

Some observers, however, argue that Sidance 2.0 is still limited to generating only 15-second clips and is prone to frequent errors, making it difficult, at least for now, to produce Hollywood-level footage.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Japanese government had already concluded that Sidance 2.0 may have infringed the copyrights of Japanese animation and other works, and has launched an investigation.