Director Darren Aronofsky, known for films such as Black Swan and Mother!, is now producing a new short-form series titled “On This Day… 1776,” according to reporting from The Hollywood Reporter.
The production company behind the series is Primordial Soup, and it employs technology reportedly sourced from Google DeepMind to generate video content about the Revolutionary War.
Time magazine, which is owned by Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, hosts the series on its YouTube channel, underlining a significant corporate sponsorship for this generative media project.
Concerns regarding the quality arise from technical flaws, including apparent lip-syncing issues between the human voice actors, who are members of SAG, and the synthesized visuals.
Critics have pointed out visual anomalies common in current AI video generation, such as distorted hands on background figures and textual errors appearing on screen props.
One episode reportedly showed the word “America” rendered as “Λamereedd,” demonstrating a lack of fidelity despite the use of advanced tools.
Time Studios President Ben Bitonti defended the series, stating it offers a glimpse into “thoughtful, creative, artist-led use of AI” that expands storytelling possibilities.
Despite the stated intent to expand creative boundaries, early viewership metrics for the first two episodes on Time's channel remain low, while social media commentary largely focuses on ridiculing the production's aesthetic shortcomings.
