Lionsgate Partners with AI Company Runway for Groundbreaking Video Generation Model

AI Video Generator Runway Partners With Major Hollywood Studio

AI video company Runwway has announced a partnership with Lionsgate that will see a custom video model trained on the Hollywood studio's extensive catalog. Lionsgate has distributed The Hunger Games, John Wick, The Twilight Saga, and Saw franchises among many others which all be available to Runway. This access to legally clear training data is unusual for generative AI companies which typically don't ask permission from copyright holders when using content to train models. "Runway is a visionary, best-in-class partner who will help us utilize AI to develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities," says Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns. "Several of our filmmakers 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." "We're committed to giving artists, creators, and studios the best and most powerful tools to augment their workflows and enable new ways of bringing their stories to life. The history of art is the history of technology and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression; the best stories are yet to be told," adds Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela. "Lionsgate has an incredible creative team and a clear vision for how AI can help their work -- we're excited to help bring their ideas to life." Runway and Lionsgate's announcement comes just one day after California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills into law that will protect actors and performers from unauthorized AI clones. The laws aim to protect actors from AI replicas of their likeness or voice being used without their consent. News of the deal hasn't gone down well on social media with filmmakers expressing their horror at the arrangement. "I don't think I've ever seen a grosser string of words than: 'to develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content creation opportunities," writes Joe Russo on X, per Ars Technica. "I wonder how the directors and actors of their films feel about having their work fed into the AI to make a proprietary model. As an artist on The Hunger Games? I'm pissed. This is the first step in trying to replace artists and filmmakers," adds film concept artist Reid Southen.

Landmark AI deal sees Hollywood giant Lionsgate provide library for AI training

Runway deal will create a Lionsgate AI video generator used to augment filmmaking. On Wednesday, AI video synthesis firm Runway and entertainment company Lionsgate announced a partnership to create a new AI model trained on Lionsgate's vast film and TV library. The deal will feed Runway legally clear training data and will also reportedly provide Lionsgate with tools to enhance content creation while potentially reducing production costs. Further Reading Lionsgate, known for franchises like John Wick and The Hunger Games, sees AI as a way to boost efficiency in content production. Michael Burns, Lionsgate's vice chair, stated in a press release that AI could help develop "cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities." He added that some filmmakers have shown enthusiasm about potential applications in pre- and post-production processes. Runway plans to develop a custom AI model using Lionsgate's proprietary content portfolio. The model will be exclusive to Lionsgate Studios, allowing filmmakers, directors, and creative staff to augment their work. While specifics remain unclear, the partnership marks the first major collaboration between Runway and a Hollywood studio. "We're committed to giving artists, creators and studios the best and most powerful tools to augment their workflows and enable new ways of bringing their stories to life," said Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela in a press release. "The history of art is the history of technology and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression; the best stories are yet to be told." The quest for legal training data Generative AI models are master imitators, and video synthesis models like Runway's latest Gen-3 Alpha are no exception. The companies that create them must amass a great deal of existing video (and still image) samples to analyze, allowing the resulting AI models to re-synthesize that information into new video generations, guided by text descriptions called prompts. And wherever that training data is lacking, it can result in unusual generations, as we saw in our hands-on evaluation of Gen-3 Alpha in July. Further Reading However, in the past, AI companies have gotten in legal trouble for scraping vast quantities of media without permission. In fact, Runway is currently the defendant in a class-action lawsuit that alleges copyright infringement for using video data obtained without permission to train its video synthesis models. While companies like OpenAI have claimed this scraping process is "fair use," US courts have not yet definitively ruled on the practice. With other potential legal challenges ahead, it makes sense from Runway's perspective to reach out and sign deals for training data that is completely in the clear. Even if the training data becomes fully legal and licensed, different elements of the entertainment industry view generative AI on a spectrum that seems to range between fascination and horror. The technology's ability to rapidly create images and video based on prompts may attract studios looking to streamline production. However, it raises polarizing concerns among unions about job security, actors and musicians about likeness misuse and ethics, and studios about legal implications. Further Reading So far, news of the deal has not been received kindly among vocal AI critics found on social media. On X, Filmmaker and AI critic Joe Russo wrote, "I don't think I've ever seen a grosser string of words than: 'to develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content creation opportunities.'" Film concept artist Reid Southen shared a similar negative take on X: "I wonder how the directors and actors of their films feel about having their work fed into the AI to make a proprietary model. As an artist on The Hunger Games? I'm pissed. This is the first step in trying to replace artists and filmmakers." It's a fear that we will likely hear more about in the future as AI video synthesis technology grows more capable -- and potentially becomes adopted as a standard filmmaking tool. As studios explore AI applications despite legal uncertainties and labor concerns, partnerships like the Lionsgate-Runway deal may shape the future of content creation in Hollywood.

Runway Wants to Train an AI on Lionsgate's Movie Catalog

AI startup, Runway, and Hollywood movie studio, Lionsgate, have announced that they are partnering to build and train a new AI video generation model, and fine-tuned using Lionsgate's proprietary film catalog. The companies bill the project as a way to, "help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work," per an announcement post. There are very few details about how the model will actually operate, beyond reportedly generating "cinematic video" that can then be further refined and iterated upon using the rest of Runway's AI tool suite. "Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process," Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns said in a press statement. "We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations." "Lionsgate has an incredible creative team and a clear vision for how AI can help their work - we're excited to help bring their ideas to life," Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela said, echoing Burns' sentiments. "The history of art is the history of technology and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression." Runway is also reportedly considering ways to license its models to individual creators for use as templates in building its own proprietary models, but did not state a timeline for that decision. There's also no word on whether the filmmakers and directors, whose movies comprises Lionsgate's catalog, will need to sign off before their works are leveraged as model training fodder. It's been a busy week for Runway. Prior to Tuesday's announcement, the company also unveiled its Gen-3 API, enabling developers to incorporate its video generation capabilities into third party apps, systems, and devices. The move sets Runway apart from competitors like OpenAI's Sora or Kuaishou Technology's Kling, as one of the few commercial video generators offering an API. The company is only making its Gen-3 Alpha Turbo model, which is not quite as powerful as the flagship, Gen-3 alpha, available through the API. The API is currently rolling out primarily to "large teams and organizations" who can provide feedback, so it will be a couple of weeks before the API sees a wider release. Source: Runway

Lionsgate partners with Runway AI to develop custom video generation model - SiliconANGLE

Lionsgate partners with Runway AI to develop custom video generation model In a positive step forward and a possible sign of things to come, artificial intelligence video generation startup Runway AI Inc. has signed a deal with entertainment company Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. to explore the use of AI in film production. The first-of-its-kind partnership is centered around the creation and training of a new AI model that will be customized on Lionsgate's proprietary catalog. Lionsgate is behind franchises such as The Hunger Games, Twighlight, John Wick, Saw, Divergent, and Knives Out, along with being behind hit movies such as La La Land and American Psycho. The resultant AI model will be designed to help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work, including support for the creation of generative cinematic video. "Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process," Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns said in a post. "We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations." The Wall Street Journal reports that Burns expects that the company will be able to save millions of dollars from using the new model. Lionsgate initially plans to use the new AI model for internal purposes such as storyboarding - laying out a series of graphics to show how a story unfolds - and eventually for creating backgrounds and special effects, such as explosions, for the big screen. Burns also told the Journal that the studio signed the deal believing it could fall behind competitors if it didn't move quickly. Those competitors, including The Walt Disney Co. and Paramount Pictures Corp., are said to have had discussions about partnering with AI companies that are offering generative AI video creation. The announcement comes as entertainment companies and others remained concerned about the copyright aspects of generative AI video as well as its implications for the overall industry; while still in its early days, generative AI video continues to develop rapidly and it's feasible in the coming years that the technology could advance far enough to compete with Hollywood studios. The deal, including the training of a new AI model being created based on Lionsgate's existing catalog, also sets a precedent when it comes to training models and licensing - AI companies, not just those in video, are being faced with accusations of copyright theft and notably among them is Runway. Runway was accused in July of using publicly available YouTube videos to train its AI video generation model, including videos from The New Yorker, VICE News, Pixar, Disney, Netflix Inc, and Sony Entertainment Inc. Legal action has also been taken concerning AI training regarding text being used to train models, with Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI sued for their use of nonfiction authors' work in AI training in November. The class-action lawsuit, led by a New York Times reporter, claimed that OpenAI allegedly scraped the content of hundreds of thousands of nonfiction books to train their AI models and in doing so, breached the copyright of the authors.

Lionsgate Dives Into AI With a New Deal for Its Movies and Shows

Lionsgate is getting into the generative AI business. The movie studio behind box office smashes like John Wick, The Hunger Games and Twilight has signed a deal with Runway, an AI video startup, to give the company access to its catalog of movies and shows. In return, Runway is building a custom AI model for Lionsgate, the Wall Street Journal reports today. This is a first-of-its-kind deal for Runway, marking a new era for the film studio. Lionsgate told The WSJ that it plans to use the new tech to help with editing and production processes, like storyboarding -- a planning process where creators lay out specific scenes -- and potentially CGI action scenes. However, Runway's tools aren't ready yet to produce images and video for TV and movies, its CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela said. Runway hopes to have "refined" creator tools ready in the next 12 months. AI was one of the central concerns during summer 2023's historic concurrent strikes from the Writers Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Directors Guild of America. The new deals the unions inked set a foundation for protections surrounding AI. But as AI tech has evolved since last summer, so have some artists' concerns over generative AI. Earlier this year, Runway AI and Stable Diffusion, which makes the models behind image generators like Midjourney, were sued by a group of visual artists alleging that their AI models infringe on their copyrights. The case is ongoing.

AI video company Runway scores a first-of-its-kind deal with John Wick studio Lionsgate

The AI video startup Runway has struck a groundbreaking deal with the film and TV giant Lionsgate. Under the arrangement announced Wednesday, Runway will use Lionsgate's vast catalog of content -- including classics like the Twilight, John Wick and Hunger Games movies -- to train an AI model that Lionsgate's own filmmakers and creatives will then use as a tool in upcoming productions. Lionsgate will initially use the model for storyboarding, before eventually moving onto things like generating explosion effects, once the model has been sufficiently fine-tuned. "Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process," Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns said in a statement, adding that it would save the studio money on production costs. Runway's models go beyond simple text-to-image generation, offering things like automated video editing, effects, and rotoscoping (a form of animation based on realistic footage.) Its most high-profile rival is probably OpenAI's Sora, which is more of a straight text-to-video tool. But Runway's more analogous peers include Metaphysic -- whose AI tools have recently been used to recreate familiar faces in franchise entries like Alien: Romulus and Mad Max: Furiosa -- as well as Odyssey and Flawless. Runway declined to discuss financial terms of the deal, but CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela told Fortune that the Lionsgate deal was "the first time any studio of this caliber has worked with a company to create different models." This is essentially an enterprise deal, with the customer being both the sole provider of the data that's involved and -- for now -- the sole user of the resulting AI model. However, Valenzuela said there were various options on the table about future uses of the model, including allowing individual creators and perhaps even other studios to use it. "If you have a physical studio, you can rent the studio to others to use it -- you can think about it in a very similar way," he said. The use of AI in creative endeavors is a massively controversial subject and Runway, whose investors include Google, Nvidia and Salesforce, is very much in hot water over copyright. Alongside other AI imagery companies such as Stability AI and Midjourney, Runway has been sued by artists over copyright infringement -- a judge last month refused to throw out the suit -- and a 404 Media report in July accused Runway of training its models on popular YouTube videos without permission. Valenzuela, who claimed that "a lot of the conversations we've been having around use cases and implications and challenges are somehow imaginary," hopes the kind of deal that was revealed on Wednesday will help to change the narrative around AI in art. "We're entering a stage where technology needs to be not seen as an antagonist," he said. "Technology for filmmaking and art has always been the way things work and should work. For us it's about starting to be more nuanced on how AI is actually getting deployed and how creators and artists are actually gaining value from this." Runway has so far raised $237 million in funding and The Information reported in July that it was in talks to raise a fresh $450 million round at a $4 billion valuation. Valenzuela declined to comment on that report. Runway's most recent round in mid-2023 valued the company at $1.5 billion.

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

Major entertainment company gives Runway access to vast portfolio to help film-makers 'augment their work' 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." 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.

Runway inks deal with Lionsgate in first team-up for AI provider and major movie studio

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More New York City-based AI startup Runway, backed by Google and others, is going to Hollywood. Well, to be clear, it's already been in use in Hollywood by filmmakers such as the creators of Academy Award Best Picture Winner Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. But today, Runway announced it has inked a deal with Lionsgate -- the film studio behind John Wick and The Hunger Games and TV network STARZ -- to build a custom AI video production and editing model. To create the custom model, Runway will train upon Lionsgate's library of more than 20,000 film and TV titles -- among which include Francis Ford Coppola's upcoming divisive film Megalopolis. As such, this appears to be the first time a major film studio has signed a deal directly with an AI video model provider, a move likely to send even more shockwaves through an industry already in turmoil following the 2023 actors' and writers' strikes, during which AI usage by studios was a major sticking point. A big boost for Runway's aspirations to empower creators and change cinema It's a big boost for Runway's aspirations in an increasingly crowded field of rival realistic AI video models such as Luma AI's Dream Machine, Pika Labs' Pika, Kuaishou's Kling, and MiniMax's Hailuo, not to mention OpenAI's Sora. Most of the models are publicly accessible save for Sora. According to The Wall Street Journal, Lionsgate aims to initially use the Runway's technology initially on storyboarding, background creation and special effects, especially for the many action titles and scenes it delivers, which by nature can be costly, elaborate, time-consuming and dangerous to pull off. "We're committed to giving artists, creators and studios the best and most powerful tools to augment their workflows and enable new ways of bringing their stories to life," said Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela in a statement posted to Runway's website. "The history of art is the history of technology and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression; the best stories are yet to be told, Lionsgate has an incredible creative team and a clear vision for how AI can help their work - we're excited to help bring their ideas to life." A busy year for Runway The news follows just days after Runway's launch of an invitation-only application programming interface (API) for its newest AI video model, Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, which third-party software developers and companies can use to build AI video features into their own apps or new apps atop of. It also comes on the heels of Runway introducing a new video-to-video capability in Gen-3 Alpha, meaning users can upload pre-shot video and have Runway's AI model transform it and add new effects, characters, scenery, and styles. Previously, Gen-3 Alpha supported text-to-video and image-to-video prompting. Earlier this year, reports emerged that OpenAI, Meta, and Google were all courting Hollywood film studios and executives with their rival AI video products. It seems like Runway beat them all to the punch -- at least as far as we know publicly.

Lionsgate announce collaboration with AI video company Runway

Entertainment giants Lionsgate are partnering with artificial intelligence (AI) company Runway to allow a new AI model to be trained on their extensive film and TV archive. Lionsgate, the studios behind series such as The Hunger Games and John Wick, will benefit by being able to use the resulting AI technology in future productions. "Runway... will help us utilize AI to develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities," Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns said in a statement. Few details about about how the AI technology will be used in production have been released - but given that one of the main reasons for the months-long 2023 Hollywood actor's strike was concern over the use of AI in film production, there have been many negative responses to the collaboration. "We're already seeing a lot of job loss in the creative industries, that is only going to get worse." writer and producer Helen Delzany told the BBC. "But the greater tragedy in all of this is how stale film and entertainment may become." Actor Alexander Chard posted on X "Our words, performances, and direction are merely to feed the machine until we're no longer needed." Other users on X described the collaboration as "vile" and "disgusting", though some who work in the field have been more positive. Producer PJ Acetturo - who is also the CEO of an AI entertainment company - described it as "amazing for the industry" and a way to "bridge the two worlds" of AI and film production. Runway are also currently being sued for potential copyright infringement by a group of artists, with a US district judge ruling last month that the firm were part of a group of AI companies illegally storing images in image generation systems. In June, a London cinema was forced to drop an AI-written film due to negative backlash.

GenAI firm Runway partners with Hollywood giant Lionsgate

Runway, a startup specializing in AI-powered video tools, has announced a big partnership with Lionsgate, the studio behind blockbusters like the John Wick and Twilight franchises. This collaboration will allow Runway to develop a custom AI video model trained on Lionsgate's movie catalog, providing filmmakers, directors, and other creative talents access to cutting-edge AI tools designed to enhance their production work. According to Lionsgate's vice chair, Michael Burns, the new AI model will help creators "augment their work" in unique and innovative ways. "Runway is a visionary, best-in-class partner who will help us utilize AI to develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities," said Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns. "Several of our filmmakers 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." Runway is also exploring the possibility of offering licensed versions of these AI models, giving independent creators the ability to build and customize their own AI tools for personal projects. This move marks Runway as the first AI company to publicly secure a deal with a major Hollywood studio, setting it apart from other tech firms like Disney and Paramount, who have yet to formalize similar partnerships despite discussions recently reported by The Wall Street Journal. However, this partnership coincides with new legislative developments in California, where recent bills were signed to regulate the use of AI-generated digital replicas in film and television. Adding to the complexity, Runway is also facing legal challenges over accusations that it used copyrighted content without permission to train its AI models. While this collaboration could push the boundaries of what AI can offer to the entertainment industry, it also highlights the growing tension between technological innovation and legal and ethical concerns. The partnership between Runway and Lionsgate might signal a new chapter for AI in filmmaking, but it's clear that the path forward will be closely scrutinized. Cinema has always pushed the boundaries of imagination, but since the early 2000s, the once-impossible ideas from movies have started to become real. Video calls are now a daily norm, flying car prototypes are being tested, holograms appear at concerts, and artificial intelligence is reshaping entire industries. Best AI movies to watch for the weekend But is cinema truly predicting the future, or is it just a coincidence? It's not so simple to answer. Filmmakers often collaborate with scientists and engineers to turn imaginative ideas into reality. For example, the hoverboard from Back to the Future sparked the creation of real-life prototypes, even if no one truly "needed" them. Like a child driven by the desire to play with their favorite toy, engineers accepted the challenge the film presented. The hoverboard Marty McFly rides in that iconic scene wasn't just a dream -- it was a dare, one that engineers eagerly took on. The influence of cinema extends beyond mere inspiration. Many leading tech companies, such as Adobe, Pixar, Technicolor, and Dolby, were born from the desire to bring cinematic visions to life. Today, these companies shape not only the film industry but also the broader tech world, driven by founders who turned their cinematic dreams into reality.

Generative AI startup Runway inks deal with a major Hollywood studio | TechCrunch

Runway, a startup developing AI video tools, including video-generating models, has partnered with Lionsgate -- the studio behind the "John Wick" and "Twilight" franchises -- to train a custom video model on Lionsgate's movie catalog. Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns said in a statement that the studio's "filmmakers, directors and other creative talent" will get access to the model to "augment their work." Runway, which says it's also considering ways to license models as templates for individual creators to build and train their own custom models, is the first generative AI startup to publicly team up with a major Hollywood studio. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Disney and Paramount have had discussions with generative AI providers, but those talks haven't yet borne fruit. Lionsgate and Runway's deal comes a day after California signed bills restricting the use of AI digital replicas in film and television projects, and as Runway fights a lawsuit that alleges the company trained its models on copyrighted works without permission.

Lionsgate Inks Deal With AI Firm to Mine Its Massive Film and TV Library

Instagram Rolls Out New, More Restrictive and Private Accounts for Teens In a significant move, Lionsgate and the video-focused artificial intelligence research firm Runway have inked a deal that will see Runway train a new generative AI model on Lionsgate content, and will see the entertainment company use the tech as it produces future film and TV projects. While details are scarce, the companies say that the new model will be "customized to Lionsgate's proprietary portfolio of film and television content," and exclusive to the studio. The purpose will be to "help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work." Lionsgate is the studio behind John Wick, The Hunger Games, and other franchises. The Lionsgate deal is the first partnership between Runway and a major Hollywood studio, though everyone in the business is looking at the potential for the tech closely, given the speed with which generative AI tech can create images and video based off of text or image prompts. It can also, as insinuated by Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns, ultimately serve to reduce costs, something that every studio is interested in, but particularly Lionsgate, which has long relied on films and series that are produced at more modest budgets compared to the blockbusters at some counterparts. "Runway is a visionary, best-in-class partner who will help us utilize AI to develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content creation opportunities," said Burns. "Several of our filmmakers 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." Of course, AI tools have also become a flashpoint for Hollywood, with unions worried about the impact on jobs, actors and musicians worried about misuse of their likenesses, and studios worried about the legal ramifications. In the last week alone, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that regulates AI performance replicas; and a documentary producers group released guidelines on how generative AI can and should be used in the genre. Studios are more openly experimenting with AI tools, even as there remains legal uncertainty, and concerns from labor. Runway, for its part, frames itself as helping the creative community execute on their vision. "We're committed to giving artists, creators and studios the best and most powerful tools to augment their workflows and enable new ways of bringing their stories to life," Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela said in a statement. "The history of art is the history of technology and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression. The best stories are yet to be told. Lionsgate has an incredible creative team and a clear vision for how AI can help their work - we're excited to help bring their ideas to life."

Hollywood studio strikes a landmark deal to start using Runway AI -- this is big

Lionsgate, a major Hollywood production company, has entered into a first-of-its-kind partnership with AI creative technology company Runway, marking a significant moment for the entertainment industry. The deal establishes how AI is rapidly becoming an important tool throughout the filmmaking process, from initial conceptualization to final post-production. However, it also aims to unlock new creative avenues, accelerate workflows, and reimagine how movies and television are made-all on the back of Runway's suite of AI-powered tools. Runway, known for its cutting-edge generative AI models, has developed a platform that empowers artists to seamlessly integrate AI into their creative process. As part of this new collaboration, Lionsgate filmmakers will gain access to Runway's cutting-edge AI tools supporting everything from video editing and visual effects to content creation. This accelerates traditionally manual tasks, giving creators new opportunities to innovate their visual storytelling. With these new capabilities, filmmakers can now create high-quality assets in a fraction of time, experiment with different visual styles, and even use text prompts for visual effects or scenery. These tools will make post-production more efficient including faster color correction and effects, which traditionally take up enormous amounts of time and resources. AI can create real-time collaboration and iteration between directors, editors, and other parts of VFX teams. Lionsgate's use of Runway's artificial intelligence tools reflects a general trend in the industry where technology is increasingly built into the creative process. By integrating AI, the company opens up newer avenues for filmmakers to innovate, reduce their production timelines, and narrate more engaging, visually stimulating stories. AI-driven content creation has benefits not only for large-scale studios like Lionsgate but may also have a spillover effect in smaller production companies-opening up access to high-quality tools previously reserved for elite Hollywood studios. This collaboration sets a precedent for how AI will be used in future film productions. From the creation of realistic backgrounds to rewriting scripts, even perfecting actor performances with digital effects, AI holds potential to transform the way filmmakers approach telling their stories. Perhaps the biggest problem with AI in the creative industries so far is the fear that it might replace human talent or mute an artist's creativity. But Lionsgate collaborating with Runway shows the opposite, that AI actually enhances, not suppresses, creativity. These technologies are tools that will aid, rather than take the place of, filmmakers as they delve deep into storytelling, while more complicated parts of the process are left to AI. The use of AI makes the process easier for creators to try different approaches with lower costs and less time than usually spent on filmmaking by boosting workflows and offering new ways to realize ideas. The AI-powered technology will let filmmakers rapidly iterate and experiment much more freely than previously when trying to explore and visualize different versions of their ideas. Lionsgate's partnership with Runway is a very clear indication that AI is becoming an indispensable tool for the future of film and television production. As more companies get on board with AI-driven platforms, creativity and technology will find a paired pathway to the future. A deal between Lionsgate and Runway lays the ground to a future where AI will expand filmmaking and bring another layer of innovation to entertainment.

Runway Will License Lionsgate Films

Runway, a startup that uses generative artificial intelligence to turn text or images into video, has reached a deal to license media from Lionsgate, the studio that made the John Wick franchise. In exchange, Runway will create a custom AI model for Lionsgate, potentially for pre-production and editing. "We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current

Lionsgate Will Feed Its Movies to AI, Even After Its Megalopolis Trailer Embarrassment

The studio recently distanced itself from a Megalopolis trailer full of chatbot-generated quotes, but its new deal with Runway suggests it'll be embracing AI more openly in the future. Few issues are more enflamed in Hollywood right now than the use of AIâ€"a tool that, beyond all its sci-fi dystopian associations, can compromise the very real work of, and rip jobs away from, actual humans, be they artists, screenwriters, actors, or even movie critics. But seeing as how AI can also churn out projects without pesky human considerations (like fair pay and working conditions, etc.), it's no surprise the entertainment industry is still circling ways to use it. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Variety, and other publications, and announced in a press release, Lionsgate has joined forces with applied AI research start-up Runway. Touted as a "first-of-its-kind partnership" in the press release, the deal is centered around the creation and training of a new AI model, customized on Lionsgate’s proprietary catalog. Fundamentally designed to help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work, the model generates cinematic video that can be further iterated using Runway’s suite of controllable tools." The release also has a quote from Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns: "Runway is a visionary, best-in-class partner who will help us utilize AI to develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities. Several of our filmmakers 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." (The specific excited filmmakers were not named.) As Variety points out, Lionsgate's film and TV library includes some 20,000 titles, most notably the John Wick, Hunger Games, Saw, and Twilight franchises. This year, it also put out The Crow, Borderlands, and Megalopolis. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Burns said the studio expects to save "millions and millions" using Runway's creation; the paper adds that Lionsgate "plans to initially use the new AI tool for internal purposes like storyboardingâ€"laying out a series of graphics to show how a story unfoldsâ€"and eventually creating backgrounds and special effects, like explosions, for the big screen." The WSJ also points out, however, "Runway and other generative AI startups have been sued by groups representing visual artists who allege that the tech companies violated copyrights by using their work to train their AI models. A spokeswoman declined to comment on the pending litigation. The company has filed a motion to dismiss the case." This partnership, of course, ensures that Runway has full permission from the studio to use Lionsgate-owned properties in the creation of its new model. What do you think of this latest development in the ongoing "AI in Hollywood" saga?

The studio behind 'Twilight' and 'The Hunger Games' just turned over its media library for a custom AI model

Lionsgate (LGF.A), the studio behind blockbuster franchises including The Hunger Games, Twilight, and John Wick, plans to use generative AI in the production of its films and shows via a new partnership, announced today, with the AI startup Runway. The movie studio will turn over its media catalog to Runway, an applied AI research company founded in 2018. The startup will then use Lionsgate's media library to build and train a custom AI model for the studio. The model will be able to generate cinematic videos that can be further edited with tools from Runway. "Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process," said Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns in a press release. "We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations." Burns told the Wall Street Journal that the model could save the studio "millions and million of dollars" and that it will initially be used for internal purposes, like building storyboards. Eventually, the executive said it could be used to generate backgrounds and special effects for films. The first-of-its-kind partnership comes as artists and content creators have pushed back against the use of generative AI in creative industries. For example, after a months-long strike in 2023, the Writers Guild of America fought for and gained protection against the use of AI to replace writers. OpenAI and Nvidia have been sued for allegedly training their models with copyrighted work. And this summer, several major record labels have filed lawsuits against music AI startups. "We're committed to giving artists, creators and studios the best and most powerful tools to augment their workflows and enable new ways of bringing their stories to life. The history of art is the history of technology and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression," said Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela in a statement.

Lionsgate signs deal with AI company Runway

If you thought Lionsgate couldn't make a worse decision after launching the Borderlands movie, hold its beer, as it has now announced a partnership with the AI company Runway to create and train a new AI model. This model is designed to help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors, and more to augment their work. There's a bunch of AI jargoon in there that doesn't really explain how the AI will help creators, which doesn't support the case for it. "We're committed to giving artists, creators and studios the best and most powerful tools to augment their workflows and enable new ways of bringing their stories to life," said Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela. "The history of art is the history of technology and these new models are part of our continuous efforts to build transformative mediums for artistic and creative expression...Lionsgate has an incredible creative team and a clear vision for how AI can help their work - we're excited to help bring their ideas to life." As this new AI model is being trained, it may take some time before we see its efforts at Lionsgate come to fruition. Still, it's a big-name studio embracing the use of AI, which is sure to cause a bonfire over on social media. What do you think of Lionsgate teaming up with Runway?

'Hunger Games' studio Lionsgate to partner with AI company

By Samantha Masunaga and Wendy Lee, Los Angeles Times The Tribune Content Agency Lionsgate will work with artificial intelligence research company Runway to create and train a new artificial intelligence model customized to the "Hunger Games" and "John Wick" studio's film and TV content, marking the AI company's first collaboration with a Hollywood studio. The model will generate cinematic video that can then be edited with Runway's suite of tools, the Santa Monica-based studio said Wednesday. Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns said in a statement that several of the studio's filmmakers were "already excited" about the potential applications for AI in pre- and postproduction processes. "We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations," he said. AI has emerged as a thorny issue in Hollywood, as entertainment companies want to harness such powerful tools to reduce costs and streamline their operations, but also don't want to offend actors, writers and behind-the-scenes workers who fear that the technology will replace them. Runway is far from the first AI company making inroads into the entertainment business. Already, ChatGPT maker OpenAI has started to meet with entertainment industry players to demonstrate its latest technology. Also on Wednesday, YouTube said it would make an AI-powered text-to-video tool, Veo, available for creators later this year on YouTube Shorts. Through Veo, creators can type descriptions like "dreamlike secret garden, vivid colors, visible brushstrokes," and a six-second clip will be created with AI depicting that image. Videos generated with AI will be labeled as such, YouTube said. YouTube also announced it will add a "brainstorming buddy powered by AI" in its YouTube Studio that will suggest video ideas to creators that could help their projects. "When we show this to creators, the thing they love most is how it unlocks elements of an idea they hadn't even thought of yet," said Sarah Ali, senior director of product, leading YouTube's creation experiences and YouTube Shorts during a presentation in New York. "This is not about replacing your ideas. It is about providing you with the tools to help you get there faster, or to uncover new areas you just hadn't considered before."

Lionsgate's New Deal Is a Test of Hollywood's Relationship With AI

The studio behind the John Wick, Hunger Games, and Twilight franchises just made a deal with an artificial intelligence startup to use its back catalog to build a custom AI model. It could be a tipping point. It's hard not to feel the ripple effect when big shifts happen. One such shift came Wednesday when Lionsgate -- the studio responsible for the John Wick, Hunger Games, and Twilight franchises -- announced it had teamed up with artificial intelligence firm Runway for a "first-of-its-kind partnership" that would give the AI firm access to the studio's archives in order to create a custom AI tool for preproduction and postproduction on its film and TV shows. Runway's forthcoming tool will "help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors, and other creative talent augment their work" and "generate cinematic video that can be further iterated using Runway's suite of controllable tools," according to a press release announcing the deal. If that sounds like it might pique the interest of those who have been watching AI's influence on creatives' work, it did. Hours after The Wall Street Journal broke the story, writer-director Justine Bateman, who was vocally critical of AI during the Hollywood strikes last year, made a post on X that almost felt like a warning: "Over a year ago, I told you that I assumed the studios were NOT sending lawyers to the #AI companies over their models injesting [sic] their copyrighted films, because they wanted their own custom versions. Well, here you go." If anything, the new deal could serve as a test of the AI protections unions like the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) got in their contract negotiations with studios last year. Under those protections, studios must get consent from actors before making a digital replica of them. Because, according to Lionsgate and Runway, the tool will only be used for preproduction and postproduction work, it's within the realm of that agreement, says Matthew Sag, a professor of law and AI at Emory University. "It seems like a significant development, but the movie industry has been using all sorts of technology and automation for years," Sag says. "So you could also see this as a natural evolution. The difference is that now we are seeing more things we had thought of as creative and artistic being automated." The announcement came the day after California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation aimed at protecting actors from having their work cloned without consent. Set to take effect next year, Newsom's move comes at a time when videogame workers, specifically voice and motion-caption actors, are on strike, partially over AI protections. "We continue to wade through uncharted territory when it comes to how AI and digital media is transforming the entertainment industry," the California governor said in a statement. "This legislation ensures the industry can continue thriving while strengthening protections for workers and how their likeness can or cannot be used." Even if actors' and other performers' work won't be impacted by the new tools, it's hard not to wonder about what effect new generative AI tools could have on those who work in preproduction and postproduction. Per WSJ's report, Lionsgate initially plans to use Runway's custom tool for things like storyboarding. Eventually, the studio plans to use it to create visual effects for the big screen. According to Sag, "it's impossible to know for sure which productivity tools will be job creators or destroyers," but it does seem possible these tools could impact jobs. According to Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela, though, they will not. "Our core belief is that AI, like any powerful tool, can significantly accelerate your progress through creative challenges," Valenzuela says. "It achieves this by helping to solve specific tasks, not by replacing entire jobs. Artists are always in control of their tools." Like Valenzuela, Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns sees AI as a boon to moviemaking, one that will help the studio "develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities," he said in a statement, noting that several of Lionsgate's filmmakers were excited about the new tools without naming which filmmakers. "We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing, and supplementing our current operations." What it will do to their future operations remains unknown.

Lionsgate signs a deal with the devil (an AI startup)

Remember when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA went on strike for months, in great part to get protections against AI? Well, while they did get some stipulations in there, it's not stopping AI from coming to Hollywood anyways. Lionsgate, the studio behind the John Wick and Hunger Games franchises, has struck a deal with AI startup Runway, the Wall Street Journal first reported and Runway confirmed in a press release. The arrangement will allow Runway access to Lionsgate's content library in exchange for a fresh, custom AI model that the studio can use in production and editing. The deal is similar to recent (and equally icky feeling) ones with publishing houses such as TIME and Dotdash Meredith, but it is the first of its kind for the film and TV industry. Vice chairman of Lionsgate Studio, Michael Burns, said that in recent months, he feared falling behind competitors without a step like this. "Runway is a visionary, best-in-class partner who will help us utilize AI to develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities," Burns stated. He then claimed, "Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process." There's also the small matter that he expects the company will save "millions and millions of dollars" through this agreement. Whether that money will come out of creatives' paychecks is something we can only speculate about now, but it wouldn't be surprising. As for Lionsgate's new bedfellow, like many AI companies, Runway has faced accusations of pilfering content to train its system. A former employee came forward in July with alleged internal spreadsheets demonstrating that Runway used YouTube videos from the likes of Disney, Netflix and popular media outlets to train its Gen-3 model. A group of artists are also suing Runway and other players like Stability AI for copyright infringement, reports Artnet. The plaintiffs garnered a win in August, with California District Judge William Orrick finding they had reasonably argued these companies had violated the artists' rights.

Filmmakers attack Lionsgate plan to train AI video on back catalogue (and yes, that means John Wick)

A deal to create Hollywood's first AI video generator hasn't been well received. AI video has been advancing at a rapid rate, but there are still significant hurdles, both in terms of the tech and ethical and legal aspects. That means that major studios have largely avoided significant use of AI video generation so far, but that's about to change. Lionsgate, the Canadian-US entertainment company behind franchises like John Wick, Saw and the Hunger Games, has announced a deal with the AI video developer Runway. They will create an exclusive custom generative AI model based on the company's film and TV library (see our pick of the best video-editing software for your own work). The deal between Lionsgate and Runway will the latter to train a new generative AI model on Lionsgate content. The model will be exclusively for Lionsgate's own use, and the company plans to use it for the production of future film and TV projects. It's a first-of-its-kind deal that seems likely to prompt other major production companies to follow suit, resulting in each studio having their own custom generative AI model. On the face of it, the move could avoid some of the controversy involved in training generative AI since Lionsgate would be using a model trained on its own intellectual property rather than other people's. Nevertheless, the move is generating controversy. For a start, the details provided are fairly scant. It's not clear if the model will be trained only on Liongsate content. I assume the base of it will be an existing model, possibly trained on copyright material without permission. The companies have said only that Lionsgate's AI model will be "customized to Lionsgate's proprietary portfolio of film and television content." We're told the purpose will be to "help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work", and vice chair Michael Burns claims that "Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their preproduction and postproduction process". But filmmakers on social media seem to be less impressed. After all, it's hard not to suspect that the main aim is to reduce costs. And AI is a major issue in Hollywood, as we saw during the writers' strike. Unions fear that it could lead to jobs losses, which actors and musicians are concerned about the use of their likenesses or creations. Over on X, some are nauseated even by the wording of the Lionsgate announcement. "I don't think I've ever seen a grosser string of words than: 'to develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content creation opportunities'," the writer, director and producer Joe Russo wrote. That use of the word "content" has particularly got under people's skin. "The word stems from the POV of ad planners and executives when planning ad placement. They look at a TV day and the placeholder for movies and stories were 'content' in between the ads. We need ad people out of cinema and storytelling," the journalist Jesper GB responded. "This was always the end game for the studios and AI. And creatives involved in those projects really have no recourse because the studios own the IP. Hence why the strikes, in the end were never going to stop this. Studios will just AI themselves into oblivion," the voice actor Kat Loveland wrote. "AI won't save Hollywood, it will only destroy it," the producer Marc Blitstein wrote, while the filmmaker Hayden Hewitt predicted that Lionsgate intended to train only on property they own so they can "copyright the lukewarm vomit that comes out the other end".

John Wick Studio Lionsgate Sparks Backlash With Deal to Train AI Model on Its Film and TV Library - IGN

The deal gives AI firm Runway access to Lionsgate's massive film and TV library. Lionsgate, the studio behind the John Wick and The Hunger Games franchises, has raised some eyebrows by signing a deal with a tech startup to "explore the use of AI in film production." The news was announced in a press release on Wednesday, with Lionsgate partnering with AI film Runaway to create a new AI model, trained on Lionsgate's massive film and TV library. Initial details are scarce, although the announcement says the deal is "fundamentally designed to help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work." "Several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process," Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns said in a statement with the announcement. "We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations." Despite Burns' assurances, the deal has already garnered backlash online, which isn't too surprising given how much of hot-button topic artificial intelligence has been in the creative community. It was one of the key issues during last year's writers' and actors' strikes, and just last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law two bills restricting the use of AI digital replicas of performers. "I wonder how the directors and actors of their films feel about having their work fed into the AI to make a proprietary model," film concept artist Reid Southen wrote on X/Twitter. "As an artist on The Hunger Games? I'm pissed. This is the first step in trying to replace artists and filmmakers." Some called out how vague the details were in Runway's announcement. There were no details on if creative teams would be compensated if their work was used by the AI model, and other questions were raised in regards to how the model would actually be trained. And others simply called out what a major - and precedent-setting - deal it could be. "Am I correct to think this is the first major Hollywood studio to agree to give a generative AI company access to its entire library in exchange for its own AI model??," wrote Wall Street Journal editor Jessica Toonkel. Another Other reactions from the film and TV community were swift and critical: The backlash is only the latest in what's been a rough year for Lionsgate, with two back-to-back box office flops in Borderlands and The Crow. It also recently saw controversy for a trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, pulling the trailer offline after it was discovered that the quotes it featured from famous film critics were completely fabricated.