Warner Bros has partnered with an AI dog podcast to promote its $85m would-be blockbuster, The End Of Oak Street. Responses have been mixed.
“First Anti-Marketing known to mankind. This is so horrible.”
“Yup, crossing this movie off my list now.”
Those are just a couple of the comments next to Warner Bros’ bit of promotion for The End Of Oak Street, director David Robert Mitchell’s dinosaur adventure set to appear in cinemas this week.
It’s a sample of the response to a 90-second clip, designed to look and sound like a podcast, which features AI-generated dogs. The idea is that a dog named Starbuck, who appears alongside Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway in the movie, has made a guest appearance alongside the regular hosts, a golden retriever and a French bulldog.
The canines talk in human voices, with Starbuck talking about his experiences on set and which of his co-stars treated him better.
And then the trio of mutts laugh. It’s a horrible, terrifying laugh. A peal of robotic, AI-synth merriment that can only be described as a sonic weapon. A weapon designed to break the human spirit.
The ‘podcast’ is a joint venture between Warner Bros and DogPack, a “free social networking and discovery platform designed for dog owners,” it says here. The company has been producing the Goldie & Frenchie AI podcast for several years now, with such videos as “Greyhounds explained. By an actual greyhound” receiving a few hundred thousand views apiece.
The End Of Oak Street x DogPack promotion went live on the 7th August, appearing on the studio and company’s social media feeds.
Responses, it has to be said, have been mixed so far. “How to kill a movie before it even hits theaters,” reads the first comment beneath the short on YouTube.
“I was gonna see this movie,” reads a response on Instagram. “But now, Warner Bros has just made sure I won’t.”
For balance, another Instagram user appeared to appreciate the whimsy. “You guys crack me up!!! They put a warm smile on my face each time. Thank you !”
The words were accompanied by small pictures of a stylised heart and a hand clapping.
This isn’t the first time AI-generated imagery has been used to promote a movie. Alex Garland’s Civil War was accompanied by a series of AI posters in 2024. The response to those was hostile.
This may be the first time we’ve seen a major summer film being promoted with AI-generated influencers, however. And the marketing decision is all the more surprising given that, with days before The End Of Oak Street’s release, we haven’t seen any real junket interviews with the human cast or its filmmakers.
Maybe those are still to come. Until then, we have these terrifying AI dogs. Excuse us while we scream into the void, like Homer Simpson losing his mind over an Edward Landseer painting.
The End Of Oak Street is in UK cinemas from the 14th October.
