‘The film has no AI’: Duncan Jones reveals how he made ‘Rogue Trooper’ look like a studio epic while operating with indie budget

If you have been keeping an eye on the latest developments in animation, you have probably heard the buzz surrounding the upcoming adaptation of the classic comic book series Rogue Trooper. Director and writer Duncan Jones has been working hard to bring this project to the big screen, and one of the most important things he wants you to know is that the production team steered clear of artificial intelligence. “There’s AI — the film has no AI,” says director-writer Duncan Jones emphatically about his latest feature, Rogue Trooper, Variety reported.

It is refreshing to see a project take such a firm stance, in my opinion, especially in the current climate of filmmaking. Producer Stuart Fenegan explained that because they were working on a British movie, they were able to shoot under Equity contracts, which ensured that there were no AI performances in the film at all.

This decision was actually solidified during the time of the SAG strike, which was a period marked by significant concerns among actors regarding the use of AI in their industry. Fenegan noted that they were fortunate because the strike meant many talented actors who would usually be tied up on other shows were available. They reached out to a stellar cast including Aneurin Barnard, Jack Lowden, Hayley Atwell, Daryl McCormack, Reece Shearsmith, Sean Bean, Diane Morgan, Matt Berry and Jemaine Clement.

The project is an adaptation of the 2000 AD comic book series created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons

According to Fenegan, when they showed the animatic to these actors and invited them to play in this unique way of doing an animated movie with Duncan Jones, the response was overwhelmingly positive. “And pretty much everyone was like, ‘Hell yes,’” he said.

It is being produced by Rebellion and Liberty Films, and it is set to make its world premiere at Annecy on June 22. The story follows 19, a genetic infantryman who is the only survivor of an invasion force sent to fight the Norts on a remote planet. He is on a mission to hunt down the traitor who betrayed him and his brothers in arms. To help him along the way, he is accompanied by three of his fallen squad mates, whose personalities have been stored inside his gun, his helmet, and his backpack.

To get this film looking like a massive studio epic while working with an indie budget, Jones and Fenegan had to get creative. They took lessons from their experience on Warcraft and decided to build a more bespoke, indie pipeline. Jones wrote the script and recorded every single line of dialogue for every character himself. This allowed the team to put together an animatic for the entire project, which meant they could iterate and figure out the process as they went along.

Fenegan explained that this approach helped them bring what would typically be a $60 million plus studio movie down to a much more manageable indie budget. Jones pointed out that they leaned into the classic trade-off of production. “That old triangle of speed, quality, and cost, we kind of knew that we could afford, we could afford to give up on speed, so it took us a long time to make it, but we were able to maintain the quality and keep the cost down,” Jones said.

The production took about four years to complete. While the film is photorealistic, Jones mentioned that they used animation much more than you might expect. They spent two weeks with actors in a black box studio, shooting 16 pages of dialogue a day. Crucially, they didn’t use motion capture for the actors’ bodies. Instead, they focused only on the voices and the faces, using witness cameras to capture the performance.

This saved a massive amount of money because they didn’t have to process the prohibitively expensive data that comes with full-body motion capture. Fenegan noted that by striking that from the pipeline, they could focus entirely on the human performance of the face and voice, which was a major efficiency for them.

The artistic direction was heavily influenced by the source material. Jones, a self-described superfan of the 2000 AD comics, was particularly inspired by the visual style of War Machine. He and his team brought in artists who had actually worked on the original comic books to handle the concept and design work.

Even when they ran into technical hurdles, like realizing that Unreal Engine 5.3 didn’t have all the tools they needed to achieve their desired look, they didn’t give up. Two years into production, they migrated out of Unreal to use traditional animation software like Maya, before performing a final re-render back in Unreal Engine. It was a challenging pivot, but it was necessary to get the result they wanted.

Now, with the premiere approaching, the focus is on finding distribution for the film. Jones is solely focused on getting the movie in front of an audience, as that is the biggest challenge for an indie project without a major studio behind it. They are working with CAA, and they are excited to finally show the world what they have built.