Meta has rolled out Movie Gen this month, touting it as a tool that could compete with the offerings of other AI leaders, including OpenAI and ElevenLabs. The test with Blumhouse suggests Meta intends to take its relationship with the entertainment world on for more than one quarter.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said today it has a new innovative collaboration with Hollywood studio Blumhouse Productions, which is behind The Purge and Get Out. The aim of this collaboration is to push the limits of Meta’s latest generative AI video model called Movie Gen, in the generation of very lifelike video and audio clips based on prompts that users may provide.
Meta said earlier this month that it had introduced Movie Gen, a tool capable of competing with efforts from other AI leaders, including OpenAI and ElevenLabs. The Blumhouse experiment signals the company’s intentions to get into bed with the entertainment industry, despite the tension and controversies around use of generative AI technologies.
Notable filmmakers are being signed by Blumhouse to explore the potential of Movie Gen. For example, Aneesh Chaganty, best known for his work on Searching, will be releasing a film that will deploy Meta’s AI technology on the Movie Gen website. In addition, the works of actor and filmmaker Casey Affleck as well as The Spurlock Sisters are reportedly in the works as well.
Arguing for industry intervention by filmmakers, Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum postulated that filmmakers should be approached at the onset of the development of tools like Movie Gen. He added filmmakers should decide how best technology can help support artistic storytelling rather than take over it.
Well, I think it’s great that finally directors can play around with something, and maybe they can pipe up on what it is great at, and not so great at,” he said.
At this moment when the creative industry has increasingly and better articulated its reasons for opposition to such generative AI that would spur copyright and consent issues, this collaboration comes.
Cases against tech companies including Meta have begun being filed in courts by multiple copyright owners who have been accused of making unauthorized use of protected works in training AI models. According to Meta, its AI training practices are covered under fair use laws.
