Paul Schrader, the Taxi Driver screenwriter and director of First Reformed, says his long-in-development crime noir Three Guns at Dawn will now be made entirely with AI-generated performers, after claiming no Black actors wanted to appear in the film because it lacked positive Black characters.
Schrader wrote the script years ago, during the Hollywood writers’ strike, centering it on three Black brothers in South Central Los Angeles: a corrupt cop, a drug dealer and a sexual criminal, all trying to kill one another. Antoine Fuqua came aboard as a producer and helped sell the project to Netflix, with Schrader eventually set to direct. Schrader told Deadline that Fuqua is “no longer involved” and that the project “has now become something different and is being reconfigured. It’s now an AI project.”
In a subsequent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Schrader said the film would be “all AI,” built around what he called “AI-generated human prototypes rather than name actors.” Speaking to The Playlist at the Venice Film Festival, he said the decision came after the project failed to attract a cast. “We sent it out to actors, and no Black actors wanted to play in a movie where there are no good Black people,” Schrader said. “And it sort of died. But then AI came along, and I didn’t need Black actors.”
After those comments drew backlash, Schrader offered MovieMaker a clarification that reframed the casting difficulty around star power rather than race specifically. “The Playlist article was inaccurate,” he wrote. “Anton Fuqua and I couldn’t find three BANKABLE black actors to sign on. Of course we could have found three black actors. So I switched it to white actors. Still couldn’t find three BANKABLE actors. AI actors need not be bankable.” Schrader said Fuqua exited the project roughly six months ago once the pair couldn’t secure bankable names, and confirmed he still intends to replace the film’s cast entirely with AI. He added that he has three non-AI projects lined up, the first of which begins principal photography October 12, saying, “I’m doing an AI film not so much for the story but because I’m fascinated by the technological possibilities.”
Among those who rejected Schrader’s original explanation was filmmaker Boots Riley, who wrote and directed I Love Boosters, about three Black women who steal high-end retail merchandise. Riley called the claim that Black actors refused to play criminals “a f—ing lie” on X. Schrader responded via email to MovieMaker, drawing a distinction between the two projects: “The brothers in Three Guns are a corrupt cop, a drug lord and a serial sex criminal, who are, in fact, trying to kill each other. I don’t think Boots’ comparison to the fun-loving shoplifters in I Love Boosters applies.”
Schrader has been consistent in framing AI’s disruption of the industry as inevitable regardless of the backlash. “Those jobs are gone, babe,” he told THR. “You can scream ‘Stop AI’ all you want, but you can’t stop it. Musicians are getting hit first. Then actors.”