The ‘Wicked’ Poster Controversy is Being Conflated With AI When It’s Good Old-Fashioned Photoshop

The film poster for Wicked (2024), left, and the fan-edited (not AI) version that upset Cynthia Erivo, right.

Earlier this month, the star of the new Wicked movie Cynthia Erivo shared that she was livid with a fan-edited film poster that more closely resembled the poster for the popular Broadway musical show of the same name.

Taking to Instagram Stories, Erivo called the fan-made movie poster “the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen” adding that it is “degrading” to her.

Erivo’s reaction to the fan edit on her Instagram Story.

Erivo also called out an AI-generated clip someone made of the film poster that shows her character Elphaba fighting with co-star Ariana Grande’s character Glinda.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there has been an online backlash to Erivo’s comments with Wicked fans surprised that the British actress would take such offense to what is ostensibly a tribute.

“This is, and always was, an innocent fan edit to pay homage to the original Broadway poster,” the person who edited the poster says on X. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Conflating Photoshop With AI

But it’s important to note that the fan edit was made using Photoshop. A video of the Wicked movie poster being altered to more closely match the original Broadway one was shared on TikTok where it’s received over 33 million views.

Variety asked Ariana Grande for her thoughts on the drama and her answer — which made up Variety’s headline — was “I find AI so conflicting and troublesome sometimes.”

It led a lot of people online to casually call the fan edit “AI” when most photographers will recognize the level of editing skill required to alter the image in such a way using Photoshop.

“It’s bothering me that people are calling the poster edit AI, it was literally just Photoshop,” writes the X user who first posted the image. “No AI was used.”

This is a good answer but also it’s bothering me that people are calling the poster edit AI 😭 it was literally just photoshop https://t.co/DnjWHO6OjR

— 🇵🇸 (@midosommar) October 20, 2024

An Easy Get-Out

Regardless of what anyone thinks about the drama and whether Erivo was being too sensitive, it is indicative of the world we now live in where an image can be so easily written off as AI-generated.

It’s a useful get-out clause that Grande herself used when asked about the furor, but she did add: “This is something that is so much bigger than us, and the fans are gonna have fun and make their edits.”

But for photographers and creatives, it’s a nightmare. Comments beneath genuine photos that read “That’s AI” have been proliferating across the internet ever since generative AI became a thing.

Meta hasn’t helped things with its botched rollout of “Made with AI” labels that falsely indicates a photographer’s picture is AI-generated just because he or she may have used an AI-powered editing tool.

It’s a sad situation and one that — in the absence of AI image detectors that actually work — is unlikely to improve anytime soon.