’Gladiator 2’ Extras Allege Unauthorized AI Scanning on Moroccan and Maltese Sets

After the Morocco stage, the filming of Gladiator 2 took place in the United Kingdom and Malta. But an incident is said to have occurred on the set of a fake Roman city at Fort Ricasoli in Malta, reports Times Malta. Extras present on the set would have been scanned by AI without their consent. Some of them claim that the production staff asked them to stand in a booth filled with cameras between takes. One extra said he felt trapped and didn’t "really feel like he could say no" to the production team. "They told me they were going to use it for the Colosseum crowds," he added.

Many extras fear that their face may be used without authorization for projects: "If they have your face, you don’t know if it will be used in a trailer, a movie or a video." While adding fake people to post-production montages to fill crowds has been a practice for several decades, this trend tends to be amplified with the advent of AI. "More and more Hollywood productions are being shot in countries like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Malta or Romania: countries where there are no film industry unions or are essentially powerless against the Hollywood machine," comments Matthew Maggi, journalist and founder of the Alliance for Practitioners, Artists, and Crew of Hollywood Abroad.

He will add: "Conversely, fewer projects are being shot in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, countries where industry unions are well-established. It’s obvious: no unions and less regulation mean more profits for productions, at the expense of decent working conditions for crews and artists." In the United States, the SAG-AFTRA union is waging a relentless battle against the constant use of AI.