Lionsgate partners with AI firm to train generative model on film and TV library

Lionsgate has signed a deal with the artificial intelligence research firm Runway, allowing it access to the company’s large film and TV library to train a new generative model.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the model will be “customized to Lionsgate’s proprietary portfolio” which includes hit franchises such as John Wick, Saw and The Hunger Games. The aim is to help film-makers and other creatives “augment their work” through the use of AI.

“Runway is a visionary, best-in-class partner who will help us utilize AI to develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content creation opportunities,” said Michael Burns, Lionsgate’s vice-chair. “Several of our film-makers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process. We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations.”

Related: ‘Hold on to your seats’: how much will AI affect the art of film-making?

Burns believes that the deal will save Lionsgate “millions and millions of dollars”.

The technology will be used to help makers storyboard a project before being utilised for background scenery and special effects.

Runway hosts an annual AI film festival in both Los Angeles and New York City.

The company is in the middle of legal trouble after a group of visual artists claimed that its image-generation system infringed on their copyrights.

The news comes after a troubling summer for Lionsgate, which suffered from a string of underperformers at the box office. There were disappointing returns for the company’s reboot of The Crow, Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and the video game adaptation Borderlands, with the last film estimated to lose Lionsgate between $20m and $30m. This past weekend also saw action comedy The Killer’s Game open to just $2.6m from a $30m budget.

The announcement also arrives the day after California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, signed two bills to restrict the use of AI replicas of performers. The bills had originally been passed in August and were supported by the Hollywood union Screen Actors Guild, following on from last year’s new contract which also brought in new protections.

Newsom said: “We’re making sure that no one turns over their name, image and likeness to unscrupulous people without representation or union advocacy.”

Last week also saw a new set of guidelines released for documentary film-makers to ensure an ethical use of AI in their work. “In a world where it is becoming difficult to distinguish between a real photograph and a generated one, we believe it’s absolutely pivotal to understand the ways generative AI could impact nonfiction storytelling,” a statement from Archival Producers Alliance read.