The Russo Brothers
Directors
Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame and founders of the studio AGBO. Self-described technologists, they are among Hollywood’s most vocal AI optimists — predicting AI-generated, personalized films and defending its use in their own productions.
In their words
But the value of it is the democratization of storytelling. That’s incredibly valuable. That means that anyone in this room could tell a story, or make a game at scale, with the help of a photoreal engine or an engine and AI tools. That, I think, is what excites me about it most.
There’s a lot of finger-pointing and hyperbole because people are afraid. They don’t understand. But ultimately you’ll see AI used more significantly.
Biography
Anthony Russo (born 1970) and Joe Russo (born 1971) are American filmmakers who direct as a duo. They are among the highest-grossing directors of all time, best known for four Marvel films — including Avengers: Infinity War and the record-breaking Endgame — and for founding the production company AGBO, which produced the Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once.
They are also among Hollywood’s most outspoken AI optimists. As early as 2023, Joe Russo predicted that AI would soon be able to generate full, personalized films on demand, framing the technology as a “democratization of storytelling” and disclosing that he sits on the boards of several AI companies. The brothers describe themselves as technologists drawn to new tools — optimists, in Anthony’s words — even as they acknowledge real dangers and insist artists must stay in control.
In 2025 they put the position into practice, using generative AI on their film The Electric State and publicly defending the choice. Their argument is that much of the backlash is driven by fear and misunderstanding, and that — for all its current limits and “hallucinations” — generative AI is best suited to exactly the kind of open-ended creative work that filmmaking demands.
Where they stand in the war
The opposition
Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker
Oscar-winning director of Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and Pinocchio, and one of cinema’s most beloved champions of handcrafted, human-made art. In 2025 he became one of Hollywood’s most quotable opponents of generative AI, saying he would “rather die” than use it.
Kane Parsons
Director
Self-taught filmmaker who created the viral “Backrooms” horror series on YouTube as a teenager and is now directing its feature adaptation. A VFX prodigy, he is sharply critical of generative AI — saying he gets no creative enjoyment from it and would make it “disappear forever” if he could.
Tim Burton
Director
The gothic-whimsical auteur behind Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman. After seeing AI-generated versions of his own Disney character designs, he described the experience as something “sucking” from his soul — likening generative AI to a robot taking your humanity.
Dana Terrace
Animator
Peabody Award-winning animator and creator of Disney Channel’s The Owl House who became one of animation’s most outspoken opponents of generative AI. In 2025 she urged fans to cancel Disney+ and pirate her own show in protest of the studio’s embrace of AI-generated content.
The Indie Game Awards
Awards Ceremony
An annual indie-focused awards show produced by the team behind Six One Indie. It enforces a blanket ban on generative AI — a policy that, at its December 2025 ceremony, led it to strip Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 of its Game of the Year win hours after handing it out.
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/russo-brothers