Goodfellas CEO Vincent Maraval has put Michel Hazanavicius’ The Third Hand into the film industry’s AI debate after saying the technology cut eight days from a major battlefield sequence.
According to the Variety report, Maraval described the scene as the film’s opening battlefield sequence and said, “Without AI, it’s ten days of shooting. With it, it’s two days.” The report did not name the tools used or give a technical breakdown of whether AI was used in planning, imagery, post-production, visual effects or another part of the process.
That distinction changes the debate because AI in film can mean very different things, including previsualization, background generation, editing support, crowd extension, audio tools or fully generated images. Maraval’s public comments, as reported, established the time saving but not the method.
What The Third Hand is about
Goodfellas’ official sales page lists The Third Hand as in post-production, directed by Hazanavicius, with François Civil, Bérénice Bejo and Rebecca Marder in the main cast. Its synopsis places the story in Verdun in 1916: Paul Marchand, a young French soldier, is wounded in battle and wakes in a mad scientist’s laboratory with a German hand grafted onto his abdomen.
Hazanavicius is best known internationally for The Artist, which won five Oscars at the 84th Academy Awards, including directing for Hazanavicius and best picture.
Why the comment drew attention
Maraval framed the use of AI as a creative and financial choice. In the Variety report, he said new technology can help directors tell stories they otherwise might not have the means to make, and he pointed to Gints Zilbalodis’ animated feature Flow as an example of software making an ambitious project possible.
The same claim also raises the labor question. Cutting a scene from 10 shoot days to two can reduce location costs, scheduling pressure and production risk. It can also mean fewer paid days for crew and performers, depending on how the production was staffed and contracted. ComingSoon reported that some social media users criticized the comment as a sign that cost savings could come at the expense of workers.
The industry context
The San Sebastián conference took place September 22 and 23 in collaboration with CAA Media Finance, with the festival listing executives from Goodfellas, MUBI, Neon, StudioCanal, Acme AI & VFX and other companies among participants. AI was not a side issue; it sat inside a finance and production conversation about how films get made.
In the United States, unions have already pushed AI into contract language. SAG-AFTRA says its 2023 TV/theatrical agreement created a framework for protecting performers’ voices, likenesses and performances. IATSE’s 2024 Basic Agreement summary says work assigned through AI systems is covered by the agreement and that employees cannot be required to provide prompts in a way that displaces covered employees.
Those U.S. agreements do not automatically answer questions about a French production, and Maraval’s comments did not disclose the contracts involved on The Third Hand. They do show why an eight-day saving is more than a production anecdote. The number lands directly in a debate about who benefits when software reduces the time needed to stage expensive scenes.
What is still unknown
No public release date was listed on Goodfellas’ sales page at publication time, and the available reporting does not include a direct statement from Hazanavicius about the AI workflow. The core fact remains an attributed claim from Maraval: AI reduced one major battlefield sequence from 10 days of shooting to two.
For audiences, the final test will be whether the sequence works on screen. For the film business, the question arrived earlier. The Third Hand has become a clear case study for the trade-off likely to follow more productions: fewer shooting days, lower costs and a new argument over what gets lost when technology compresses the work.
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