Doug Liman Brings the Deepfakes of Power to Cannes

Doug Liman presented Bitcoin at the Cannes Marché du Film. Previously titled Killing Satoshi, it feels almost deliberately designed to make Hollywood, Cannes, Silicon Valley, the crypto world and entertainment unions argue with one another in the same afternoon.

The director of The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow is making a thriller about the hunt for Satoshi Nakamoto and Craig Wright’s attempt to claim the vacant identity as his own. Casey Affleck, Pete Davidson, Gal Gadot and Isla Fisher lead the cast.

The film will also feature versions of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Elon Musk and Eric Trump, portrayed by actors whose appearances are modified with AI to make them resemble the real figures more closely.

It is a particularly combustible short circuit around the very idea of likeness: who has the right to own an identity when an image can be imitated, altered and sold? Using AI-enhanced versions of recognizable public figures relies on their existing public image while simultaneously manipulating it — not so far, conceptually, from what Wright himself did when claiming Nakamoto’s identity.

The question sits inside a much wider transformation in Hollywood’s relationship with AI, digital replicas and likeness rights. Once faces become editable production assets, the difference between representation, imitation and ownership becomes increasingly contractual.

Bitcoin by Doug Liman: Craig Wright, Satoshi and the casting of the digital apocalypse

The story begins with Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who spent years claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Casey Affleck plays him in the film. Pete Davidson plays blockchain financier Calvin Ayre, while Gal Gadot appears as Charlotte “Lotte” Miller. The screenplay is by Nick Schenk, whose previous credits include Gran Torino and The Mule.

In 2024, the British High Court ruled that Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, which makes Liman’s project even more delicate. He is not merely adapting a digital legend. He is entering a dispute already shaped by court cases, legal warfare, financial paranoia and crypto propaganda.

Bezos, Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Putin, Kim Jong Un, Musk and Eric Trump will appear through actors enhanced with AI. If Hollywood starts feeding billionaires, politicians and dictators into artificial resemblance engines, almost every future biopic risks becoming a negotiation involving permissions, lawyers and software.

The $70 million AI film shot in 20 days

The real industrial story is that Bitcoin was shot in just 20 days on a purpose-built soundstage using markerless performative capture.

The production used a “gray box”: gray walls, very few physical objects, neutral lighting, with environments and final lighting generated later in post-production. It is an unusually clear example of the production shift explored more broadly in the changing relationship between AI and filmmaking.

According to the producers, making the film through a traditional production model would have cost around $300 million. With this system, the budget reportedly fell to roughly $70 million.

The screenplay called for around 200 locations, ranging from Antarctica and Antigua to Las Vegas. Instead of moving actors, crews and departments around the world, production concentrated almost everything inside a controlled environment.

The film is produced by Acme AI & FX, founded by Ryan and Matt Kavanaugh, Garrett Grant and Lawrence Grey. Liman’s own company, 30 Ninjas, also worked on the project.

Anticipating the most obvious criticism, the producers emphasize the amount of human labor still involved: 107 cast members, 100 people in the shooting crew, 54 members of the non-shooting crew and 55 AI artists, with post-production expected to last approximately 30 weeks.

Liman reinvented the movement of action cinema with Bourne and turned the time loop into a war machine in Edge of Tomorrow. The result here could be brilliant, grotesque or simply hard to digest. Either way, Doug Liman has found the loudest possible way to sell a film at Cannes.

And perhaps Bitcoin is simply reminding us that the market does not really need to see the face of power. A sufficiently convincing performance will do.