Seth Rogen Tells Cannes: If You Use AI to Write Scripts, You Shouldn't Be a Writer

Seth Rogen arrived at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival promoting "Tangles," a hand drawn animated film he described as having a human touch on every single frame. He left as the festival's most categorical voice against AI in the writing room.

Speaking to reporters on the Croisette, Rogen delivered a direct verdict on writers who turn to AI for their scripts: "If your instinct is to use AI and not go through that process. You shouldn't be a writer. Because you're not writing."

Writing Means Doing the Work

Rogen's position rests on a specific premise: the value of writing is in the process of generating it, not only the product. "The idea of a tool that makes me write less is not appealing to me, because I like writing", he said.

Writing requires a human being to sit with difficulty, generate ideas, and make choices. Using AI to skip that work disqualifies the activity from being called writing, in his view. He told reporters that writers who default to AI should "go do something else."

Rogen was equally direct about the viral AI short films that regularly circulate online as evidence that Hollywood is obsolete. "Every time I see a video on Instagram that's like, 'Hollywood is cooked,' what follows is the most stupid dog shit I've ever seen in my life."

A Festival Divided on the Question

Cannes 2026 became the defining venue for the Hollywood AI debate this year, with major filmmakers and actors staking out positions across a single week. Demi Moore said fighting AI is "a battle we will lose" and urged colleagues to find ways to work with it. Peter Jackson called AI "just a tool like any other tool", placing it alongside other production techniques in the filmmaker's kit.

Guillermo del Toro rejected the premise that art can emerge from an app, making him the closest in spirit to Rogen's position. But del Toro addressed AI in art broadly. Rogen's remarks are narrower and more personal: a claim about a single profession and whether reaching for AI to generate a script is compatible with being a writer.

"Tangles" Makes the Argument Visible

"Tangles" is a hand drawn animated feature. Rogen described it as a production where every frame carries "a human touch to it," meaning every image was drawn by a person.

In a production climate where AI tools can generate animation at scale, that choice is deliberate. The film is the argument made physical: a feature where human authorship is present in every line, and visible.

Rogen also stars in "The Studio," Apple TV+'s Hollywood satire, which received multiple awards at BAFTA 2026. The show follows the head of a film studio navigating the creative and commercial pressures reshaping the industry. His Cannes remarks arrive with that context in view.

Filmmakers working with AI in their own productions can explore the latest text-to-video and image-to-video models through the AI FILMS Studio workspace.

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Sources

Variety | The Wrap | Deadline