Lionsgate, the studio behind the John Wick and The Hunger Games franchises, has raised some eyebrows by signing a deal with a tech startup to “explore the use of AI in film production.” The news was announced in a press release on Wednesday, with Lionsgate partnering with AI film Runaway to create a new AI model, trained on Lionsgate’s massive film and TV library. Initial details are scarce, although the announcement says the deal is “fundamentally designed to help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work.
” “Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process,” Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns said in a statement with the announcement. “We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations.” Despite Burns’ assurances, the deal has already garnered backlash online, which isn’t too surprising given how much of hot-button topic artificial intelligence has been in the creative community.
It was one of the key issues during last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes , and just last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law two bills restricting the use of AI digital replicas of performers. “I wonder how the directors and actors of their films feel about having their work fed into the AI to make a proprietary model,” film concept artist Reid Southen wrote on X/Twitter . �.