--- title: "OpenAI Says It’s Making a Full Hollywood Movie Using AI" description: "OpenAI has teamed up with production companies in London and Los Angeles to create a feature-length animated movie made with AI." date: "2025-09-08" modified: "2025-09-08" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/openai-full-hollywood-movie-using-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "animation" - "generative ai" - "hollywood" - "job automation" - "OpenAI" --- # OpenAI Says It’s Making a Full Hollywood Movie Using AI ![OpenAI has teamed up with production companies in London and Los Angeles to create a feature-length animated movie made with AI.]() *\Image: OpenAI\* OpenAI has teamed up with production companies in London and Los Angeles to create a feature-length animated movie made largely with artificial intelligence. As the [*Wall Street Journal* reports](), the purported goal of using AI tech on the movie is to speed up production while also saving costs — and, presumably, serving as a giant tech demo for movie execs everywhere. The film will invite comparisons to the early days of CGI-animated movies in the mid-1990s. Funded heavily by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, the era's animation studio Pixar quickly turned into a powerhouse, producing a litany of critically acclaimed and commercially successful feature films including "Toy Story" and "Monsters Inc." But whether generative AI will represent yet another major revolution in the space — let alone save production companies time and money — remains to be seen, especially considering that plenty of technical quirks have yet to be ironed out, often [requiring the intervention of human creatives]() to fix the flawed outputs. The film, dubbed "Critterz," is reportedly about forest creatures going on an adventure, and was first dreamed up by OpenAI creative specialist Chad Nelson three years ago. Nelson created a short film of the same name, which was [released in 2023]() with OpenAI funding. https://vimeo.com/1056588141?fl=pl&fe=ti The news comes as the adoption of generative AI — with varying degrees of success — is hitting a fever pitch in Hollywood. Major entertainment companies, including [Disney]() and [Netflix](), are already experimenting with the tech. The push could have devastating consequences for working creatives. Experts [have long warned]() that the tech could wipe out human jobs in the animation industry, especially as tools like image and video generators are [becoming increasingly capable]() of spitting out believable materials. James Richardson, co-founder of London-based Vertigo Films, which is working with OpenAI on the film, told the *WSJ* that the goal is to cut the production time of Nelson's vision for "Critterz" from three years to just nine months. The budget of the feature is less than $30 million, which is substantially less than other animated films. In light of widespread fears of human animators losing their jobs, Nelson assured the *WSJ* that the movie wouldn't rely on AI entirely. Human actors will still lend the movie's characters their voices. Human artists will also feed their sketches into OpenAI's tools. But whether "Critterz" will be a success is far from guaranteed. Especially [considering the widespread blowback companies]() have already received for using AI, audiences have clearly grown wary of the tech. Interestingly, while AI-generated content can't technically be copyrighted, the human-created voices of characters and original artwork they were based on could still make them eligible for copyright protection, experts told the *WSJ*. The subject has become a major point of contention, with rightsholders suing OpenAI and other AI companies for allowing their tools to [generate images and clips of copyrighted characters](). Just last week, AI startup Anthropic [agreed to pay $1.5 billion]() as part of a class action settlement after being caught training its AI models on hundreds of thousands of pirated books. **More on OpenAI:** *[To Help Workers Losing Their Jobs to AI, OpenAI Is Launching a Jobs Platform Run By AI]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()