AI-generated fake retro movie trailers are delightfully weird

Abandoned Films
(Image credit: Abandoned Films)

What would a Mario movie have looked liked filmed in Super Panavision 70 in the 1950s? Or Terminator? Or Dune? An account on YouTube and Instagram is dedicated to exploring such vital questions by using AI video generation and Photoshop to create trailers for retro movies that were never made.

While the usual AI image generator artifacts are a clear giveaway that we're not really watching footage from 1950s movies, the pieces are delightfully weird and hallucinatory. And they even manage to capture some of the charm of films from the era. In some cases, the glitches and imperfections add to the plausibility that in another past these could have been real movies.

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Joe Foley

Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.

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