Back in March, shortly after Netflix’s deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for $82.7 billion crashed and burned, we learned that instead the streamer had picked up a different company: InterPositive, an AI startup founded by Ben Affleck. When they announced the acquisition, Netflix and Affleck touted InterPositive as a filmmaking tool that uses AI to process dailies (the unedited footage shot on set each day) and perform postproduction work like lighting and effects. They really hyped the angle of “this is just for the tedious parts of filmmaking” and left unsaid the bit about all the human jobs wiped out by this technology. Also left unsaid at the time was how much Netflix spent on this purchase. Well, Netflix just had to submit a federal filing and it revealed that they cut Ben Affleck a check for $587 million to buy InterPositive. That’s a lot of Dunkin’ Donuts!

As part of the company’s Form 10-Q report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Netflix confirmed that it completed an acquisition in March “for a total purchase price of approximately $587 million.” The disclosure came months after a Bloomberg report indicated Netflix’s March acquisition could amount to up to $600 million for Affleck and InterPositive’s investors, even if the total price for the company was less than that amount.

The remainder would be made up through “certain performance targets,” according to the Bloomberg report. Netflix did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

Netflix purchased Affleck’s startup, which he founded in 2022 and operated in stealth mode, in a bid to develop AI tools that kept “filmmakers at the center of the process.” The purchase brought aboard InterPositive’s 16-person team of engineers, researchers and creatives, while Affleck joined Netflix as a senior adviser. The company’s tools allow filmmakers to build an AI model using production dailies to help enhance post-production work such as mixing, relighting shots and adding visual effects, forgoing typical visual generative efforts.

“From the invention of the moving image to the transition to digital, from motion capture to virtual production, technology has evolved alongside the artists who use it,” Affleck said as part of the merger announcement. “Our shared commitment to continuing this legacy makes joining together a natural next step, in addition to Neftlix’s decades of experience applying and scaling technology responsibly.”

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos highlighted the company’s integration of generative AI tools and its work with InterPositive during its second-quarter earnings call on Thursday, where it revealed that roughly 300 of its titles have used some form of generative AI this year. Sarandos said that while the InterPositive deal was still in its “early days,” Netflix has seen its impact on productions alongside some of its other in-house tools.

Still, even as he highlighted the use of AI in the docuseries “The American Experiment” to produce sequences “twice as fast and at half the cost of previous options,” he said the company wasn’t eager to replace human-made work with generative technology.

“We believe it takes great artists to make something great, and AI is not changing that,” Sarandos said. “Movies are being made by people who make movies. AI provides them with better tools to make them even better.”

“We believe it takes great artists to make something great, and AI is not changing that.” If that line wasn’t written by AI, then this follow up definitely was: “Movies are being made by people who make movies. AI provides them with better tools to make them even better.” Not if it spits out sentences like that! No really, what kind of demented Dick and Jane reading primer language is “Movies are being made by people who make movies,” huh?!! In fact all the quotes here are bloated statements meant to placate us. The only honest comment is when Ted Sarandos brags on his earnings call about AI working twice as fast at half the cost. Well, I’ll return the candor and admit that I pointedly refused to watch The American Experiment. I hope Chris Nolan is right about the youngins rejecting AI and that they’ll decline to watch AI-enhanced Netflix content as well.

Photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency / BACKGRID/Avalon and via YouTube/Netflix