AI has gained another foothold in the filmmaking industry as Lionsgate has partnered with applied AI research firm Runway. The studio behind popular franchises such as John Wick, The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Saw, along with Academy-Award nominated films such as Crash, Monster’s Ball, Hacksaw Ridge, and popular television shows such as Ghosts, The Rookie, Madmen, and more, has entered into a deal with Runway to streamline its production processes for its creative staff. Runway’s AI model will have access to Lionsgate’s portfolio of film and television content to help filmmakers, directors, artists, and other staff augment their work with generative video and a suite of tools.
Per the official press release:
“Runway is a visionary, best-in-class partner who will help us utilize AI to develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content creation opportunities,” said Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns.
Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns adds that “several” filmmakers are excited about the new deal but do not list whom. It would be interesting if Francis Ford Coppola is among AI’s fans following the fake chatbot quotes used for his upcoming sci-fi dystopian film Megalopolis which led to the removal of a marketing consultant and a new trailer getting released without the quotes.
- “Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process. We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations.”
- “We’re committed to giving artists, creators and studios the best and most powerful tools to augment their workflows and enable new ways of bringing their stories to life. The history of art is the history of technology and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression. The best stories are yet to be told,” said Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela.”
“Lionsgate has an incredible creative team and a clear vision for how AI can help their work – we’re excited to help bring their ideas to life.”
Cristóbal Valenzuela – Runway co-founder and CEO
From cost savings and investors to controversy
Meanwhile, Lionsgate’s portfolio includes roughly 20,000 titles for Runway’s AI to harvest for content creation. Burns told the WSJ that Lionsgate expects to save “millions and millions of dollars” through its partnership with Runway. “We do a lot of action movies, so we blow a lot of things up and that is one of the things Runway does,” he added. Even though Lionsgate has partnered with Runway to cut future costs it is also probably hoping to lower its spending following two other recent releases that went over like a pair of lead balloons, namely Borderlands and The Crow.
The ethical use of AI within the entertainment industry has been a primary focus for SAG-AFTRA in protecting the rights of its members. AI has also been scrutinized for misuse of copyrighted work as well. On the other hand, it’s been widely publicized that AI is generating record-breaking profits for some big tech companies. Runway has some big-name funding partners from the tech industry. NVIDIA, Google, and Salesforce Ventures have contributed $237 million to the research firm, which says on its home page that it is “Advancing creativity with artificial intelligence.”