Lionsgate's AI Deal Sounds a Lot Like It Wants to Replace the Jobs of Storyboard and VFX Artists

The goal is to save "millions and millions of dollars," the studio says.

Cine-files

Lionsgate, the studio behind hit franchises ranging from "John Wick" to "The Hunger Games" to cult classics like "American Psycho," is entering into a major partnership with the AI firm Runway, The Wall Street Journal reports.

As part of the deal, announced Wednesday, Runway receives access to Lionsgate's treasure trove of movies and TV shows — which in return the startup will use to develop a new AI model exclusively for the Hollywood studio.

Runway claims that the AI model will be capable of generating "cinematic video." And Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns says the tech will save the company "millions and millions of dollars," per the WSJ — remarks that suggest an aim of slashing jobs if the project is successful, with Burns saying the goal is to use the tool for roles that have traditionally been done by humans, like storyboarding and the creation of visual effects.

"We do a lot of action movies, so we blow a lot of things up and that is one of the things Runway does," Burns told the paper.

Copy That

This is the first deal of its kind that Runway has signed with a major Hollywood studio. Though for Lionsgate, the timing could be better: it was only last month that it came under fire for using totally made up, AI-generated quotes purporting to be the words of famous movie critics in a trailer for "Megalopolis," Francis Ford Coppola's forthcoming sci-fi epic.

Runway also enters this relationship with some baggage: along with several other generative AI companies like Midjourney, it was sued by artists for committing copyright infringement by using their artwork to train its AI models without permission.

In signing this deal with Lionsgate, Runway avoids those copyright hurdles, which could pave the way to a more legally scrupulous expansion of the technology into the industry down the road.

It's this aspect of the deal that makes Runway's unique among partnerships between other studios and AI companies, because they usually don't involve allowing AI firms to access their film and TV libraries to train their models on, Jeff Katzin, a partner at the firm Bain & Co which worked with Lionsgate on its AI strategy, told the WSJ.

Above Board

As the significance of this deal shows, the movie industry is at an AI crossroads. Major studios are increasingly experimenting with the tech, even though it remains controversial among creatives. These tensions came to a head last year, when actors and screenwriters joined forces in a major strike that, among other concessions, successfully sought landmark AI protections.

This week, California expanded on those AI safeguards with two new pieces of legislation that make it illegal to use AI to replicate an actor's likeness and voice without explicit permission.

For now, Runway's AI tools aren't capable of generating images of a high enough quality to be used in movie and TV productions, the WSJ notes. But now that the startup has access to Lionsgate's extensive library, maybe it eventually will.

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