Lionsgate swaps movies and TV shows for custom AI
You may not know Lionsgate by name, but you’ve certainly seen some of its biggest hits, including films like the John Wick franchise, The Hunger Games, The Twilight Saga and TV shows like Mad Men. All of these shows and films are being made available to an AI startup, under a new deal announced this week.
Runway is an AI video startup. If you’re a Canva user, you can test out its text-to-video capabilities. This deal is the first of its kind for the AI company. Runway will build a custom AI model for the studio using Lionsgate’s content catalog. Lionsgate Studio Vice President Michael Burns told The WSJ, which first reported According to Burns, the studio wants to use the AI tool in the editing and production process and save the company “millions and millions of dollars” in the process.
AI was a central concern during the summer of 2023 strikes by Hollywood unions, including The Writers Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Directors Guild of America. The new deals that the unions eventually ratified to lay a foundation for protections around AI. But AI remains a concern for Hollywood, as SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a speech at the guild’s 2024 awards ceremony, “AI will trap us in a matrix where no one knows what is real anymore.”
Some of these artists have led to legal action. Earlier this year, Runway AI and Stable Diffusion, which make the models behind image generators like Midjourney, were accused by a group of visual artists who claim that their AI models infringe on their copyrights. The case is ongoing.
Runway’s tools aren’t yet ready to produce images and video for TV and movies, CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela told The WSJ. The company hopes to have “refined” creator tools ready in the next 12 months.
