Christopher Nolan at the New York premiere of The Odyssey in July 2026. Photo by PhilipRomano, cropped (CC BY-SA)
Christopher Nolan wants the studios to fight AI for him. The Directors Guild of America president said on the Hollywood Insiders podcast that it is “down to the studios” to protect films from AI, Deadline and TheWrap reported.
Key Takeaways
- Nolan said the DGA is “very focused” on holding studios to account, because directors usually don’t own the copyrights to their films.
- He praised boilerplate in The Odyssey’s end credits that says the film can’t be ingested or used as AI training data.
- He called “AI” too broad a term that companies use “to absolve themselves of responsibility.”
- He predicted fair-use defenses for AI training “won’t hold up in court” in the long run.
The Full Story
“With very few exceptions in the guild, we are not the copyright holders of the films that we’ve worked on. It’s down to the studios to do that,” Nolan said. He has been DGA president since fall 2025. TheWrap reported that Universal included the AI warning in The Odyssey’s credits for the first time.
Nolan compared it to music sampling. “You can’t just take something, stick it into your machine, and then claim that that’s fair use if you’re selling it on, even in thinly disguised form,” he said. “This has to go through the courts. It’s going to take a long time. I have no doubt that we’re going to get there.”
The Social Conversation
Coming from one of the few directors who can open a movie on his name alone, the comments land. The Hollywood Insiders podcast is hosted by producer and former Academy president Hawk Koch and produced by the Motion Picture & Television Fund.
