Lionsgate Is Learning the Hard Way That Making Movies With AI Isn’t So Simple
Earlier this year, Michael Burns, vice-chairman of Lionsgate, made a big claim. Speaking with Vulture, he said that through a partnership with generative AI company Runway AI, the studio behind franchises like John Wick and The Hunger Games could take one of its big-name series, repackage it as an anime generated entirely by AI in just hours, and then resell it as a brand-new movie.
According to The Wrap, the deal has hit a wall. What was announced last year as a groundbreaking partnership between a major studio and a generative AI company hasn’t delivered.
The problems seem to come down to three things: The limitations of Lionsgate’s film library, the shortcomings of Runway’s technology, and the messy legal questions around copyright and compensation.
The original agreement gave Runway access to Lionsgate’s entire film catalog in order to build a custom AI model exclusively for the studio. On paper, it sounded like a goldmine. In reality, the library isn’t big enough to create a fully functioning generative model.
The Wrap even noted that Disney’s massive collection wouldn’t be sufficient. Generative AI tools need staggering amounts of training data to create convincing results. Without it, the outputs are clunky at best.
That tracks with what we’ve seen elsewhere. Even Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora, which have far larger datasets to pull from, still spit out plenty of glitches, oddities, and uncanny valley weirdness. If those tools struggle with endless resources, a more limited studio catalog was never going to cut it.
Then there’s the legal side. Burns’ pitch of anime-style remakes raised a big question: who gets paid if AI recreates a film? As he told Vulture, “I’d have to pay the actors and other rights participants to sell it.”
But who exactly does that cover? Just actors? Writers? Directors? The report suggests that even crew members like gaffers could theoretically have a claim. Owning the IP doesn’t erase the complicated layers of rights that come with filmmaking.
Despite the snags, Lionsgate insists it’s still on track with AI. Peter Wilkes, the studio’s Chief Communications Officer, told Gizmodo:
“We’re very pleased with our partnership with Runway and our other AI initiatives, which are progressing according to plan. We view AI as an important tool for serving our filmmakers, and we have already successfully applied it to multiple film and television projects to enhance quality, increase efficiency and create exciting new storytelling opportunities.
“We are also using AI to achieve significant cost savings and greater efficiency in the licensing of our film and television library. AI remains a centerpiece of our efforts to use new technologies to prepare our business for the future.”
So while the exclusive model with Runway hasn’t played out as promised, Lionsgate is still experimenting. Vulture reported earlier this year that the studio was working on an AI-generated trailer for a movie that hadn’t even been shot yet, hoping to pitch it to buyers with fabricated footage.
Whether this ends up being a useful tool for creators or just a shortcut for executives to sell projects remains to be seen. For now, Lionsgate’s AI movie-making dreams are proving to be a lot harder than they first pitched.