Lionsgate sells movie catalog to AI video startup Runway hoping to replace artists and FX
Hollywood studio Lionsgate has sold its entire back catalog of movies and TV shows to AI video startup Runway to train a new model on, which Lionsgate will then have access to. [WSJ, archive] Lions…
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Not even slightly bothered by this. The “industry” has always looked for ways to minimize production costs while optimizing profits. They are in the volatile high risk business of selling art for profit.
What successful studios understand is you have to take the losses with the wins, take risks and champion new artists. Placing trust in the artists to know what will be profitable.
The studios that rely on gimmicks, regurgitating old ideas and building projects like they are in the toilet paper business are the ones that die. Lionsgate is simply signaling that it doesn’t know what it’s doing and will pivot or die.
The art of filmmaking only works with human hands, there is no amount of 3D,4D, IMAX, recliner seat CGI in your face AI that will replace it. They are selling bespoke handcrafted free range storytelling. The second the audience smells preservatives, Lionsgate will be filing for Ch11.
I'm worried the studios might be too big to fail. Or rather, too big to fail fast enough not to have the fallout of their loathsome ideas screw all of us over.
They don't make non-"smart" TVs anymore and that's not because nobody objected.
What are you gonna do when the other major studios follow suit, adding that sweet sweet AI aspartame in their franchise schlock? Not go and see Batman vs. Darth Vader 3: The Rebackening? Watch an indie movie instead? Don't make me laugh. Your friends are already depicting you as a soyjack who insists on watching foreign 6-hour black-and-white silent films about communism.
Huh. Aspartame. I never thought of AI as aspartame but that is a really good comparison. They're not the real deal, you can taste the difference although most people wouldn't care, it's cheaper, and it is detrimental to the consumer (the effect of AI being the death of real creativity and wonder about what the human mind can come up with).
I can't say I know what Liongate's plan is, precisely, but I think you're hitting this on the head.
Remember. Most corporate strategy could be summarized as persuading investors for more debt. It doesn't really tell the whole story of what is or will happen, only what needs to be said loudly in a room full of fools holding the money bags.
