For today’s edition of Kismet rails against AI news… A24 is a hotshot film studio. They started out as the little studio that could, building a loyal fanbase by adopting an almost quaint approach: support the filmmaker’s vision. And the weirder the vision, the better! The studio’s profile exploded when Everything Everywhere All at Once became such a huge commercial success (by their standards, at least) and big time Oscar winner. Yet even with more mainstream recognition, A24 kept their edgy, indie factor. Until now. They just announced “an AI research partnership” deal with Google, wherein Google is investing $75 million for A24 to “develop AI-powered film tools.” Instead of dancing with the devil onscreen in one of their signature horror films, A24 has chosen to get in bed with the devil off screen. Et tu, A24?
A24 and Google have struck an AI research partnership that will see the independent studio work with Google’s DeepMind unit to develop new AI-powered technologies for filmmakers.
Google’s roughly $75 million investment is tied to the partnership and is in line with what Thrive Capital invested during the studio’s last funding round, according to the Wall Street Journal. The partnership will give A24 access to DeepMind’s research and infrastructure, while DeepMind researchers will work with the studio to build out new workflows. The deal does not give Google access to A24’s content library or its data.
…A24 partner Scott Belsky, who leads the studio’s technology division A24 Labs, told the Journal the studio’s Google partnership differed from other deals because AI developers mistakenly advertised their products as a means to make films cheaper and faster. His division is developing applications for AI-generated storyboards, another reimagination of the production process that has seen filmmakers like Martin Scorsese rubber-stamp.
“We think there are better uses that preserve creative control and support risk-taking,” he told the Journal, arguing the new tools “won’t look anything like the prompted generation type of AI that people feel uncomfortable with.”
“We believe breakthroughs happen when you get technology into the hands of the best minds in the field,” Eli Collins, a vice president of product for DeepMind, told the Journal.
A24 has been a landing pad for many emerging filmmakers, with the critical and commercial success of its roster of films — “Lady Bird,” “Moonlight,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Marty Supreme” and the recent box-office winner “Backrooms” — owed to its trust placed in the filmmakers it’s enlisted and the fervent, largely young fanbase it has amassed. (Roughly 85% of those who saw “Backrooms” during its opening weekend were under 35, according to PostTrak data.) The agreement comes as roughly half of adults under 30 believe AI will harm society, according to a Pew Research study published last week.
In case I didn’t make it clear before, A24 is absolutely the last studio I expected to turn to the dark side make a deal with a big AI company. And much like Netflix’s recent purchase of Ben Affleck’s AI startup InterPositive, I’m sure A24 is gonna push really hard on the angle of “this will only be for the tedious technical parts of filmmaking, nothing creative!” I mean, they’re already starting with language like “won’t look anything like the prompted generation type of AI that people feel uncomfortable with.” No no no, A24 will only be working on the GOOD AI! The warm comfy fuzzy kind!! Except we’ve seen just this week what the consequences are when filmmaking becomes entwined with AI and the tech bros behind it, when Amazon — who had a three-film deal with auteur Luca Guadagnino — brazenly dropped the director’s third movie, Artificial. Why? Because it’s about OpenAI. The filming is already done, by the way, so Amazon let Guadagnino go through the effort of shooting it before showing what chickensh-ts they are. This is the movie where Ike Barinholtz plays Elon Musk (not to mention Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman) and we’re not getting to see it!!
As far as I’m concerned, when a film studio makes a deal with AI, censorship is not far behind. And there’s nothing edgy or indie-coded about that, A24.
PS — Love the way Variety slipped those statistics in at the end.
Photos are screenshots from the trailer for The Debut from A24 and also credit Getty
I’ve been part of the loyal fan base for forever and am gutted. Terrible news.
Agree – SO gutted by A24, of all studios, doing this.
And this whole “AI is inevitable” BS is such a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It’s just tech bros – who are bleeding money after their massive AI investments – then having to pay celebrities to parrot that stance, and since everyone is still like, “No thanks, don’t need AI,” they are inserting themselves into industries to force AI upon them.
AI is only inevitable because the tech companies are forcing it to be so!
And I can’t believe how many people are willing to sell their souls to help with that agenda.