Hollywood Unites Against AI Impersonation as Fake Pitt-Cruise Video Ignites Legal Firestorm

A new AI-generated video depicting a brawl between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise has become a flashpoint for Hollywood’s escalating war against digital impersonation. The clip, created using ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 model by filmmaker Ruairi Robinson, shows eerily synthetic versions of the stars trading punches and exchanging dialogue about Jeffrey Epstein, injecting the actors' likenesses into volatile conspiracy theories.

While the fakes are imperfect—Pitt’s face in close-up slips into an unnaturally smooth ‘uncanny valley’—the video’s virality underscores a growing problem. A recent CNET survey found that while 94% of U.S. adults suspect they see AI ‘slop’ online, only 44% feel confident spotting it.

The industry response has been swift and unified. The Motion Picture Association demanded ByteDance cease ‘infringing activity,’ while SAG-AFTRA issued a statement standing with studios, calling Seedance a threat to actors' livelihoods that ‘disregards law, ethics, and basic principles of consent.’ Disney has already sent a cease-and-desist to ByteDance over similar Seedance videos featuring Marvel and Star Wars characters.

ByteDance, which sold its U.S. TikTok stake last year, told CNET it ‘respects intellectual property rights’ and is strengthening safeguards. It has updated Seedance to block image uploads of real people, though this does little to stop use of fictional characters.

Legal experts see this as a foundational conflict. As AI tools make it trivial to repurpose celebrity images and copyrighted material, this viral fight scene is merely the first skirmish in a long battle over consent and copyright in the digital age.