Darren Aronofsky Reimagines the Revolutionary War Through AI

“What a terrible time to have eyes.”

That’s one of the comments on YouTube in reaction to applying generative AI to prestige historical storytelling.

Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky is executive producing “On This Day… 1776” through his AI-focused venture Primordial Soup, which has partnered with Google DeepMind to recreate pivotal moments from the American Revolutionary War using a blend of AI and traditional production techniques.

The AI is coming out

The series is being released on Time’s YouTube channel, with new episodes timed to the 250th anniversary of the events they depict.

A lot of comments on YouTube did not revere the use of AI:

“Imagine making this and proudly slapping your ‘studios’ logo at the end.”
“Primordial Slop.”
“Why are y’all stooping to producing slop? This looks so weird. Use real people.”
“The comments are the only piece of entertainment here.”

Positioned at the intersection of filmmaking, technology, and historical documentation, the project arrives amid ongoing debates in Hollywood about the creative and ethical implications of AI — particularly in light of labor concerns, copyright disputes, and fears of automation replacing human craft.

Short-form history experiment

“On This Day… 1776” is designed as a weekly short-form series, with each episode dramatizing a single event from that foundational year in American history. According to the companies, the narratives are fact-based and feature SAG voice actors paired with AI-generated visuals, using what they describe as a “combination of traditional filmmaking tools and emerging AI capabilities.”

The hook is the calendar itself. Each episode is released on the exact 250th anniversary of the moment it portrays, effectively turning the sestercentennial into a rolling, real-time media event.

The debut episode focuses on George Washington raising the Continental Union Flag in Somerville, Massachusetts, an act intended to boost morale among colonial forces. A second installment centers on Benjamin Franklin encouraging a newly arrived Thomas Paine to articulate the ideas that would become Common Sense — framed here as an early example of viral political media that helped shift public sentiment across the colonies.

‘Reframing the Revolution’

Aronofsky is executive producing alongside longtime collaborators Ari Handel and Lucas Sussman. Sussman is overseeing a team of writers, supported by editors, artists, directors, and designers. The stated creative goal is “reframing the Revolution not as a foregone conclusion but as a fragile experiment shaped by those who fought for it.”

A trailer for the series underscores that theme, showing historical figures attempting to rally uncertain colonists as confidence gradually builds. Rather than mythologizing the outcome, the series emphasizes doubt, persuasion, and contingency — an approach that aligns with modern historical scholarship while also lending itself to dramatic tension.

In choosing the Revolutionary era and the fight against Britain, Aronofsky is tapping into material that has long defined American entertainment across mediums, from the Broadway musicals “1776” and “Hamilton” to HBO’s “John Adams” and AMC’s “Turn.”

Test case for AI storytelling

Whether AI can truly capture the texture of a historical moment remains an open question. “On This Day… 1776” implicitly tests whether models trained on historical texts, imagery, and scholarship can convey the emotional reality of a time period as effectively as traditional reenactment.

The series also arrives as AI video tools continue to spread beyond professionals. Disney’s recent deal with OpenAI, which makes Sora available on Disney Plus, underscores how rapidly these technologies are moving toward mass use.

In that context, Aronofsky appears to be positioning himself between two poles: studios that want AI adoption at scale, and filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, who have argued that high-end cinema should avoid it entirely.

Let’s give the final word to another comment on YouTube: “Watch the Ken Burns docuseries instead — labor of love a decade in the making from real historians, reeanactors, voice actors, crew, etc. Flush this AI goop right down the drain.”

Elon Musk has once again found himself at the center of a digital firestorm.

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