Nolan Says Studios Must Guard Film Copyrights From AI
Christopher Nolan, now president of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), says the union intends to hold studios to account for protecting their films from artificial intelligence. He made the point in a Hollywood Insiders podcast interview, as reported by Deadline on November 7, 2026.
Why the studios? Nolan said the job falls to them because, with very few exceptions, Guild members are not the copyright holders of the films they work on. Copyright is the legal right to control how a work is copied and reused. In most cases it sits with the company that owns the finished film, not with the director, writer or crew.
Nolan also pointed to his own film, The Odyssey. He said it contains, for the first time, end boilerplate stating that the film cannot be ingested and used as training data. Training data is the material an AI system learns from, so the wording is meant to tell companies not to use the film that way.
Nolan is not new to the subject. He sat on the DGA's Artificial Intelligence Committee before becoming president. In December 2025, the guild published a message from him on AI and on studio self-licensing, the practice of a studio licensing its own films and shows to streaming platforms it also owns. Earlier that year, in February 2026, he spoke with Deadline, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the guild's 2026 bargaining with the AMPTP, the group that negotiates contracts on behalf of studios and streamers. The Hollywood Reporter interview covered AI, corporate consolidation and jobs.
The guild has been working on the issue for some time. Its Digital Day 2026 event, titled "Mind Over Machines," looked at a hybrid production pipeline that combines live-action filming with visual effects and real-time technology. Former DGA President Lesli Linwood Glatter, in an October 2025 farewell letter, also discussed the protections the guild had negotiated on AI.
What stands out is where Nolan places the responsibility. The guild's members make the films, but the companies that hold the rights decide how those films are used. His remarks shift the focus of the AI debate toward the owners of the copyright, and toward the contracts that govern them.
Nolan's comments are the most recent public statement from the guild's president on the subject. They were made as a podcast interview, not as a formal guild policy announcement.
