‘Killing Satoshi’: $70M Bitcoin Film Starring Casey Affleck Will Make Heavy Use of AI

An upcoming full-feature movie produced with artificial intelligence will star crypto and its leading asset, Bitcoin, according to a report from The Wrap.

“Bitcoin: Killing Satoshi,” directed by “Bourne Identity” director Doug Liman, will feature a star-studded cast including Gal Gadot, Casey Affleck, Isla Fisher, and Pete Davidson, with a $70 million budget—and a major assist from AI tools.

Designed as a thriller focusing on Bitcoin and the search for its pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, the film follows a plot across continents and some 200 locations of various climates, according to the report. But none of it was filmed on location.

“We decided to use AI very early on,” producer Ryan Kavanaugh told The Wrap. 

“We budgeted out what it would be to do it practically, and it was over $300 million,” he said. “We realized we could bring down the cost by utilizing some of the AI tools out there.”

The film was shot inside a former car showroom that they wrapped in a gray screen, earning it the moniker “the gray box.” Inside the box—as seen in behind-the-scenes set photos at The Wrap—the settings and lighting were produced with AI, but the performances were all the work of real actors, without alteration. 

“The performance is captured in a very unique way using our AI protocols,” Kavanaugh told the publication. “So when the scene is generated, the AI is taking the performance and building everything within the performance frame.”

“Bitcoin: Killing Satoshi” is expected to be shopped to potential buyers at the Cannes International Film Festival next week, according to the report. 

The film’s shopping is timely, given the resurgent conversation around the identity of Bitcoin’s creator. Last week, a New York Times expose named major Bitcoin personality and Blockstream CEO Adam Back as the creator of the top crypto asset. 

Back denied the claim, calling the piece a “combination of coincidence and similar phrases from people with similar experience and interests.” 

In 2024 ,an HBO documentary entitled “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery” said that BTC core developer Peter Todd was really the creator. To the claim, Todd publicly stated that he was “not Satoshi.”

Another documentary film, “Finding Satoshi,” is expected to attempt to unmask the Bitcoin builder when it debuts next week.

The mysterious Bitcoin founder disappeared from the internet in 2011, two years after the network’s launch. Their reported stash of holdings—nearly 1.1 million BTC according to data from Arkham Intelligence—is now valued around $81 billion. 

Bitcoin is up 0.7% in the last 24 hours, recently trading around $74,900. It remains more than 40% off its all-time high of $126,080 set last October.