Adam Shankman Acknowledges AI Use in Stop! That! Train!

Xtra Magazine's Russ Martin interviewed Adam Shankman ahead of Stop! That! Train!'s Inside Out film festival gala screening in Toronto. In that interview, Shankman said, "Some of the windows were AI. There was only one or two AI shots of the train, the rest are CG," describing a mix of AI-generated elements, traditional CGI, and licensed stock footage. Xtra reports that this conversation took place before Shankman released a public statement responding to earlier backlash, in which he said, "There are a sum total of ZERO shots conceived by AI in the movie." That backlash had begun after VFX artist Gloria Cook's May 28 Letterboxd review of an advance screening called some of the film's effects conspicuously AI-generated, prompting coverage from Deadline, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter of Shankman's denial. After Xtra published the interview on June 10, 2026, a Bleecker Street representative gave Xtra a follow-up statement specifying uses of AI by the VFX team: adjusting the camera angle of live-action window footage to match one shot, and formatting a CGI-crafted train onto two frames of live-action exterior footage, while emphasizing that traditional CGI was used for the train and that hundreds of VFX artists were hired and paid for the film.

The episode is a small but concrete case study in how disclosure disputes over AI in film tend to play out: a practitioner-level observation, Cook's VFX critique, triggers a categorical denial from a filmmaker, followed by a narrower, more technical clarification from the studio once specifics are requested. Stop! That! Train!, starring Ru Girls Ginger Minj, Jujubee, and Brooke Lynn Hytes and distributed by Bleecker Street, is a rare wide theatrical release built around drag performers, adding visibility to the dispute beyond typical VFX-industry circles.

For VFX and postproduction teams, Bleecker Street's eventual statement is a useful template for how studios are choosing to disclose AI use under pressure: naming the specific shots and tasks, camera-angle matching, compositing frames, rather than making a blanket claim, and pairing it with an emphasis on the scale of human VFX labor involved.

Watch for whether other productions facing similar VFX-AI accusations adopt Bleecker Street's shot-specific disclosure model rather than a categorical denial, and whether industry guilds or festival programmers push for standardized AI-use disclosure in credits or press materials.