Don’t talk to Oppenheimer and The Fall Guy star Emily Blunt about algorithms. She isn’t a fan, to put it lightly. Speaking with Variety, the actress expressed her annoyance at the mathematical equations being utilized to decide what movies and shows get made in Hollywood.
“Some new things frustrate me: algorithms, for example,” Blunt said. “I hate that f**king word, excuse the expletive! How can it be associated with art and content? How can we let it determine what will be successful and what will not?”
Recently, A Knight’s Tale director Brian Helgeland talked to Inverse about how Netflix tested a sequel to that film in one of its algorithms and concluded it wouldn’t be successful. Additionally, Helgeland opened up about writing the Game of Thrones spin-off 10,000 Ships, an HBO show that’s no longer in development.
Blunt believes an algorithm, like in the Netflix example above, would have never given the greenlight to Oppenheimer, the highest-grossing biopic ever. “I was in a three-hour film about a physicist, which had the that impact it had–the algorithms probably wouldn’t have grasped it,” she said. On top of the blockbuster box office success, Oppenheimer was also the big winner at the 2024 Oscars. The Christopher Nolan-directed film took home seven Academy Awards.
For more, check out GameSpot’s Oppenheimer review. Blunt will next be seen on the silver screen alongside Ryan Gosling in The Fall Guy, which premieres May 3 in theaters.
