Although many in the industry were rather disappointed to hear that A24 would be bringing AI into the fold, it isn’t quite what you might imagine. To share the full details, we have Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment lawyer, Brandon Blake.
A $75M Deal
The deal with Google DeepMind will see A24 pass a cool $75M the AI company’s way. Supposedly, however, it’s for “research purposes,” rather than anything to do with production, and comes without any mandate, either.
Given that A24 has made most of its reputation for high-quality (and very human) indie movies, many found the news that it was buying its way into the AI space a disappointment. However, they insist they only want to develop new workflows and techniques with the tech, rather than use it for any real creative purpose.
A24 will get access to any research or infrastructure the company develops, while they get input from the studio about how to develop their tools. It’s a swing we’ve seen within the industry quite a lot over the last few months. It seems studios are moving away from the idea of actually developing films using AI generation, but rather putting it towards developing a new slate of filmmaking tools. A fine line, really, but an interesting one nonetheless.
No IP Deal
What isn’t included in the deal, at least according to current reporting, is access to A24’s IP and libraries. It won’t be using them to train models or to produce future output. That’s quite different from Lionsgate’s deal with Runway, for one. It does, however, bring it in line with both Amazon and Netflix, which have taken their AI tool production in-house.
It is a little tough to believe that Google is, essentially, getting nothing but “expertise” from the deal, but then again, the $75M price tag is a drop in the bucket for the tech giant. This is, however, at the very least the first time we have seen them collaborate directly with a studio or distributor, so it will doubtless be an inroad to the industry itself for the tech company.
