Gal Gadot and the new Hollywood: Bitcoin, AI and a $70 million experiment

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Gal Gadot and the new Hollywood

From Wonder Woman to Bitcoin

Directed by Liman, whose credits include The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow, Bitcoin takes Gadot into a story built around the identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Gadot plays war correspondent Charlotte “Lotte” Miller alongside Casey Affleck, Pete Davidson and Isla Fisher. The story involves Australian computer scientist Craig Wright's claim that he is Satoshi, a claim rejected by a UK court in 2024.

For Gadot, the experiment extends beyond the subject of the film. Its roughly 200 locations include Antarctica, Antigua and Las Vegas, but the actors did not travel to them. Instead, they spent just 20 days filming in a former car showroom in West London, largely against gray screens, with AI being used to create locations, sets and lighting afterward.

AI scares Gadot, and she is using it anyway

Rather than rejecting a technology she finds unsettling, Gadot says she is trying to understand it. The unusual production gave her a chance to experience what AI-assisted filmmaking could mean for actors themselves.

Without conventional sets and frequent pauses for lighting changes, the cast could sometimes perform for hours at a time. Gadot compared the experience with theater.

“Everything was stripped down and all that was left was the performance,” she said.

The economics of the experiment are just as striking. Producer Ryan Kavanaugh estimates that filming Bitcoin conventionally across so many locations would have cost more than $300 million. Its reported budget is around $70 million.

Those figures remain the producer's estimate, and the finished movie has yet to show whether AI-generated environments can deliver the expected visual quality. Gadot herself had not seen a completed shot when she discussed the project. “We'll see,” she said.

Where Gadot draws the line

Her willingness to experiment did not mean giving AI unrestricted access to her work.

Gadot's contract took six months to negotiate as her lawyers considered how the technology might be used during and after production. Her central condition was that AI could create the world around her but could not generate or alter her performance.

“I did not want AI to have anything to do with my performance,” she said.

The issue is becoming increasingly important for performers as generative AI improves at reproducing faces, voices and movements. Gadot said SAG-AFTRA contacted her lawyers while examining protections that could potentially be useful for other actors.

How much of Hollywood can AI change?

Studios have obvious reasons to keep experimenting. If a production can convincingly recreate dozens of international locations without moving large casts and crews around the world, the economics of ambitious filmmaking could change considerably.

Bitcoin offers one version of what that could look like. Its actors, director and performances remain human, while much of the physical world surrounding them is created digitally.

There is also an appropriate symmetry in using AI to make a film about Bitcoin. Both technologies have moved rapidly from the fringes into industries that once viewed them with considerable skepticism.

Gadot finds herself directly inside that debate rather than watching it from the sidelines. She is curious enough to experiment, worried enough to spend six months protecting her performance and pragmatic enough to believe that simply refusing to engage with AI is no longer realistic.

Gadot has not yet seen what the finished experiment will look like. For now, she is doing exactly what she believes Hollywood will increasingly have to do: working with AI while deciding what it should not be allowed to touch.

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