Warner Bros. has teamed with the AI dog podcast “DogPack” to promote its upcoming sci-fi action film “The End of Oak Street.”
The 90-second podcast clip, hosted by an AI golden retriever named Goldie and an AI French bulldog named Frenchie, features an interview with Starbuck, who plays Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor’s dog in “Oak Street.” Starbuck, of course, is also animated using uncanny AI effects.
In the opening moments of the interview, Frenchie asks Starbuck, “Which one of your human co-stars was the best trained?” Starbuck replies, “Ewan McGregor was excellent with treats. Anne Hathaway matched him there, but she could scratch behind both ears at once. Game over!”
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The video was shared across the Warner Bros. socials. On Instagram, most of the commenters were excited about the collab, but some took issue with the studio opting to use AI in their promotional material.
One commenter wrote, “Billion dollar company using AI. slop.” Another comment with over 400 likes read, “So is this an AI movie or????”
From writer-director David Robert Mitchell, “The End of Oak Street” follows a suburban family who must survive a dinosaur horde after their neighborhood is miraculously transported through space-time. Outside of Hathaway and McGregor, cast members include Maisy Stella, Christian Convery, Jordan Alexa Davis and P.J. Byrne. J.J. Abrams produced the film under his Bad Robot banner. During a recent press event, Abrams said that one of the reasons he believed in “Oak Street” is because it’s a high-concept blockbuster anchored by very real family dynamics.
He told Mitchell, “The brilliance of what you wrote is that each of the characters has a secret, essentially. Each of the characters has something they’re wrestling with, but they’re a family that you so connect with and so root for and believe in. It’s not a sadistic movie. It’s got a big heart at its core.”