It took less than a week for Hollywood to unite against Seedance 2.0, the latest update to TikTok parent company ByteDance’s generative video platform. The new version launched on Feb. 12, and immediately made a splash when passably realistic videos of well-known characters (like Star Wars’ Anakin Skywalker and Godzilla’s Godzilla) and celebrities (like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt) fighting each in various combinations began to proliferate all over social media.
The videos garnered immediate cease-and-desist letters from the major studios and a condemnation from the Motion Picture Association. “In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale,” MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement. “By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs. ByteDance should immediately cease its infringing activity.”
What makes this AI platform so bad? Here’s everything you need to know.
How did this start?
Last week, ByteDance launched the 2.0 version of their generative video app, Seedance. As with every other update by the major A.I. companies, this release came with a wave of shock and awe about just how realistic the figures in the videos were, how faithfully the output could rip-off recognizable movies, characters, and celebrities, and how easy Seedance made it to infringe on copyrights.
Suddenly, Bruce Lee was fighting Godzilla. Rey dueled Anakin. Batman was fighting John Wick. And Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt were giving rumor-mongers the battle they always suspected was going on. Seedance users appeared hellbent on misappropriating IP from every major company in Hollywood, and those entities responded as expected.
What happened next?
Many of the major studios, including Disney and Paramount, sent cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance. In the case of Disney, they accused the company of training the model off of a “pirated library” of their characters, which — after seeing what Seedance was able to create — was going to be pretty hard to deny.
And ByteDance didn’t even really try.
On Monday, the company told the BBC that it totally got why companies are mad. “We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
Where do we go from here?
While ByteDance hasn’t comment on what specifically it intends to do about copyright infringement with Seedance, we’ve already seen how these kind of disputes are being resolved. In December, OpenAI (which is being sued by the parents of a teen who died from suicide) and Disney struck a deal to bring the family brand’s characters to Sora, the AI company’s video generator.
So… Is Hollywood dead?
Deadpool & Wolverine writer Rhett Reese spurred a lot of headlines when he tweeted “It’s over” in response to the Cruise and Pitt fight video. He went on to elaborate on his anxieties, writing, “I am not at all excited about AI encroaching into creative endeavors. To the contrary, I’m terrified. So many people I love are facing the loss of careers they love. I myself am at risk. When I wrote ‘It’s over,’ I didn’t mean it to sound cavalier or flippant. I was blown away by the Pitt v Cruise video because it is so professional. That’s exactly why I’m scared. My glass half empty view is that Hollywood is about to be revolutionized/decimated. If you truly think the Pitt v Cruise video is unimpressive slop, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But I’m shook.”
Writer of Deadpool & Wolverine, Rhett Reese reacts to viral AI video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting:
“I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.” pic.twitter.com/gEE7o4mrsX
— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) February 12, 2026
While the hysteria around Seedance’s first few days proves there’s reason enough to be shooken, the future of audiovisual art has yet to be decided. Like Disney’s agreement with OpenAI shows, these cease-and-desist letters are primarily about IP holders upset their property is being exploited without them making money. Those issues can be resolved by cutting a check.
Whether AI takes over filmmaking will ultimately come down to whether these companies believe they can make more money than they currently are by utilizing it, and what decides that is if we give them our money. Is there a novelty to seeing Bruce Lee fight Godzilla? Sure. But there is no power in Lee’s image without him having physically turning his entire organic body into muscle and performing feats on-screen that are difficult to believe. And that can’t be stolen, only cheaply copied.
(Metaphorically speaking, I mean. Legally, that can definitely be stolen.)