Mercy

NO MERCY: Behind the Sci‑Fi Flop That Turned Into a Full-Blown Gossip Goldmine

Think Mercy is just “that Chris Pratt AI movie” everyone dragged online? Oh, sweet summer child. The real entertainment has been happening off-screen — between ripped pants, AI casting chaos, awkward co-star moments, and a backlash that turned one mid-budget thriller into the poster child for “Hollywood, what are you doing?”

On-Set Drama: Commando Chaos in the Death Scene

• Chris Pratt turned Mercy into a family affair by casting his older brother Cully — an army vet and former cop — in a small security-guard role. Cute idea… until wardrobe got involved.
• For a bloody death scene loaded with squibs, Cully was handed pants that were two sizes too small — and for reasons known only to the gods of chaos, he was going commando.
• During a reshoot involving elevator doors and gunfire, the pants exploded more dramatically than any stunt: they ripped from the top of his butt crack to above his pubic area. Cully reportedly blurted, “Uhh, my dick’s out,” then had to lie there “dead” for minutes while the crew tried not to die laughing.
• Chris told the story on Jimmy Kimmel Live, praising his brother for staying “method” and not breaking character even while accidentally flashing the set. That’s one way to make your big-screen debut.^[1][2]

Cast Feuds & Awkward Energy: When Your Co‑Star Says “No” to Your Face

• Fans expecting big sparks between Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson might be shocked to learn the pair hardly shared a room, let alone a scene.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7HxSxngap4

• In a promo interview literally titled “Rebecca Ferguson Said ‘No’ to Working Face-to-Face with Chris Pratt,” Ferguson explains she chose to play AI judge Maddox mostly via screens and separate setups — meaning a lot of her performance was done away from Pratt, relying on tech and imagination instead of old-school scene work.^[5]
• Social media and fan groups picked up on a Radio Times blurb calling their first meeting for Mercy “a slightly awkward exchange,” fueling speculation that the two stars had… less than instant chemistry.
• Officially, everyone’s professional and polite. Unofficially, fans have clocked that their on-camera promo vibe often feels friendlier than their actual screen dynamic — and the “she wouldn’t work face-to-face” headline did not help.

**Scandals & Controversies: Is Mercy Secretly AI Propaganda?**

• Whatever message Mercy thought it was selling, critics and fans quickly rebranded it as the “AI propaganda movie.”
• CBC torched the film as “absurdly stupid AI propaganda,” arguing that halfway through it stops being a cautionary tale and turns into “a bizarre PR campaign for AI,” with the judge framed as a kind of ChatGPT-with-a-soul who “has a heart of gold.”
• The review skewers director Timur Bekmambetov as a tech obsessive with a “Dr. Evil-esque plan to infest Hollywood with AI actors and pump out 50 movies a year,” accusing Mercy of trying to make audiences comfortable with AI deciding life-and-death cases.^[6]
• Reddit threads piled on, calling the film “pro-AI and pro-surveillance” and mocking how the script bends over backwards to tell us “Human or AI, we all make mistakes. And we learn,” as if the robot judge is just a misunderstood sweetie.^[6]

AI Casting Chaos: The Time Chris Pratt Nearly Replaced Rebecca Ferguson With a Bot

• As if the propaganda talk wasn’t enough, Chris Pratt then admitted he’d once pitched an even more cursed idea: having an actual AI “actor” play Judge Maddox.
• In early conversations, Pratt floated, “Should we have it be an AI, where the judge is actually AI, and we create an AI?”
• According to him, the room immediately went, essentially, “Absolutely not.” Pratt now concedes, “Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”^[3][4]
• Another early, equally galaxy-brained thought: just putting a famous face like Oprah on the AI judge since it was “just a face on a screen.”^[4]
• The role ultimately went to Rebecca Ferguson — which, considering the dragging Mercy got for being “AI propaganda,” may be the only decision that didn’t age like milk.^[3][4]

Wild Trivia & Fan Snark: The Internet Has No Mercy

• Eight-Day Ferguson: Rebecca Ferguson has said she loved the idea of shooting Mercy in only eight days — a lightning-fast schedule for a studio sci-fi thriller. Fans on Reddit have since used that detail to explain… a lot.
• Strap Me Down: Pratt has openly bragged that he insisted on being literally strapped into the Mercy chair for real, not faked restraints, to sell the intensity of the trial scenes. Audiences, however, mostly felt trapped alongside him.
• Roasted in Real Time: The r/movies spoiler thread quickly devolved into a communal roast, with viewers calling it “one of the dumbest movies of the year” and mocking the villain twist as “Scooby-Doo-level” plotting.^[8]
• Historic Pratt Flop: On the business side, Mercy managed to unseat Avatar: Fire and Ash for a weekend but still delivered the worst opening of any Chris Pratt-led movie, limping in with a $11.2 million domestic debut. Ouch.