Hollywood Puts Its Animal Stars Aside in Favor of Artificial Intelligence

Creatures with fur, feathers or hooves have long been the silent accomplices of emotion on the big screen. Their presence, sometimes fleeting, added an element of unexpectedness and authenticity to the magic of a scene. However, this almost organic link between the image and the living is gradually disintegrating. Today, Hollywood animals are disappearing, relegated to the background by algorithms capable of imitating everything except the thrill of reality.

From deserted sets to digital studios

For decades, they shared the bill with the biggest. Today, animals trained for the cinema are no longer successful. The fall is brutal. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the number of contracts for animal trainers has fallen by 40 to 60% compared to the pre-Covid era. Benay Karp, who runs Benay's Bird & Animal Rentals in Los Angeles, confides that she has not received a request for a woodpecker for at least five years, while its seagulls circled without interruption a few years ago.

Horses, long essential to westerns and historical films, are also in less and less demand. Lisa Brown, former trainer on the film Secretariat (2010), discusses the painstaking work she once did to make up horses and make them appear as one. This kind of effort now seems superfluous in the digital age.

Added to this drop in activity is the shutdown caused by the pandemic and the 2023 screenwriters' strike, which have permanently slowed down the Hollywood machine. In this context of uncertainty, studios are seeking to rationalize their productions. And live animals, unpredictable and expensive, become an adjustment variable.

Hollywood animals replaced by pixels

Studios are now focusing on digital alternatives. Artificial intelligence, combined with special effects (CGI), makes it possible to create animals on screen without ever using living beings. The example of Krypto, Superman's dog, has become emblematic. In James Gunn's Superman, released in 2025, the superdog inspired by the director's own companion, Ozu, is entirely computer generated in the final scenes, despite the presence of a real dog on the set. Futurism underlines that even this rare privilege (being physically present on a set) no longer guarantees any visibility to the image.

Dogs, cats, birds and even squirrels are seeing their careers cut short in favor of digital models that are more flexible, less expensive and without filming constraints. Technicians can now train AI to reproduce movements, facial expressions or complex behaviors, with increasingly astonishing precision. A simple animal database is enough to create a tireless virtual cast.

For animal rights activists, this change represents progress. Lauren Thomasson, from the organization PETA, believes that this is a beneficial turning point, likely to put an end to the exploitation of animals on sets. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she cites Planet of the Apes: The New Kingdom and Mufasa as positive examples of this ethical transition. AI, according to her, can become a tool for animal welfare, provided it is used responsibly.

Between ethics and emotion, a cinema in search of soul

Not everyone shares this enthusiasm. Some veterans of the profession denounce a loss of substance. Bonnie Judd, animal coordinator in Canada, remains convinced that the presence of a real animal on screen provokes a form of emotion that computer-generated images cannot match. She remembers a moving scene in the film My other dogs lives (2019), toured with his dog Belle. As the camera approached, the animal closed its eyes on command, setting off a chain reaction. The whole team burst into tears.

This type of direct connection between the animal actor and the spectator, forged in the moment, is irremediably lost with digital technology. The Wall Street Journal reports that the dog Krypto, although omnipresent in Superman, aroused deep rejection among some spectators. Deemed too invasive, even caricatured, the digital superdog did not convince all fans of the saga, some regretting an excess of effects to the detriment of realism.

This divide therefore reveals a broader tension in the entertainment industry. Technological efficiency clashes with the search for sincerity. In the world of cinema, where each animal look can express a range of emotions, this sincerity could well remain the ultimate privilege of the living.