Pirates of the Caribbean Director Points to Unreal Engine for Declining Movie CGI Quality: “Gaming Aesthetic is Influencing Cinema”

It’s clear that CGI has taken a hit over the years, and Gore Verbinski, the director behind Pirates of the Caribbean, has some thoughts on why. He attributes the drop in visual effects quality to filmmakers trying to mimic the look of video games.

“The simplest answer is you’ve seen the Unreal gaming engine enter the visual effects landscape,” Verbinski shared in an interview. “There used to be a clear divide, with Unreal Engine excelling in video games, but then filmmakers started to think maybe they could use Unreal for finished visual effects in movies. This has led to a gaming aesthetic creeping into cinema… I believe that Unreal Engine replacing Maya as a fundamental tool is a significant step backward.”

Unreal Engine, developed by Epic Games, is a robust 3D creation platform that game developers use to craft visually stunning titles like Fortnite, Gears of War, and Hogwarts Legacy. However, it’s also making waves in film and TV, with projects like The Mandalorian and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania utilizing its CGI capabilities.

So, what’s the problem? When movies start using a tool designed for video games, they can begin to feel more like RPGs than traditional films. While Unreal’s visual effects aren’t inherently bad, they can come off as cartoonish in projects grounded in reality. “It works with Marvel movies where you know you’re in a heightened, unrealistic reality,” Verbinski noted. “But I don’t think it captures light the same way… This leads to that uncanny valley effect in creature animation, where a lot of in-betweening is done for speed rather than by hand.”

Verbinski has witnessed the evolution of CGI firsthand through the Pirates of the Caribbean series. He directed the first three films—The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, and At World’s End—which were lauded for their impressive CGI, particularly with Davy Jones. However, the CGI in the latest installment, Dead Men Tell No Tales, seemed to fall short, which is surprising given that it was released 14 years after the original.