The integration of AI into the film industry is inevitable, but Ben Affleck and Netflix aim to keep the technology in the hands of artists who will use it responsibly.
THR reports that Netflix recently purchased InterPositive, an AI tech company Affleck founded in 2022 to explore the emergent technology, and also anticipate how filmmakers may utilize AI to enhance, rather than override or passively hand over, their creative process. As per Affleck, InterPositive’s first model is “trained to understand visual logic and editorial consistency, while preserving cinematic rules under real-world production challenges such as missing shots, background replacements, or incorrect lighting.” This isn’t about using AI to create actresses like Tilly Norwood, but instead provides a way for filmmakers to utilize the technology to hone their respective skill sets while keeping the human quotient at the forefront.
Affleck joins Netflix as a senior adviser in the streaming giant’s deal for InterPositive, along with all of the company’s staff, including engineers, researchers, and creative executives. “I knew I had a responsibility to my peers and our industry, to protect the power of human creativity and the people behind it. In creating InterPositive, I sought to do just that,” Affleck wrote in a piece published by Netflix today. “From the invention of the moving image to the transition to digital, from motion capture to virtual production, technology has evolved alongside the artists who use it. Our shared commitment to continuing this legacy makes joining together a natural next step, in addition to Netflix’s decades of experience applying and scaling technology responsibly.”
Netflix also released a video of Affleck in conversation with CCO Bela Bajaria and CPTO Elizabeth Stone to announce the InterPositive deal this morning. In it, the three discuss how the streamer will use AI differently from other AI tech companies. Their mission? To focus on how AI might expand filmmaking’s various artistic processes rather than replace it entirely. That touches upon a major anxiety about AI that extends well beyond film and TV production.
“Our relationship with artists has always been grounded in trust: supporting the full range of their creativity and ensuring they have the power to decide how their films and shows are made,” Bajaria said in a press statement released by Netflix. “We believe new tools should expand creative freedom, not constrain it or replace the work of writers, directors, actors, and crews. Ben and his team at InterPositive are part of a long tradition in our industry of artists leading the way in how innovation is used in storytelling. Their work is about giving filmmakers more choices, more control, and more protection for their vision. We’re excited to build on that legacy together, with creators and their artistic intentions at the center of everything we do.”
“Our approach to AI has always been focused on meaningfully serving the needs of the creative community and our members,” Stone added. “The InterPositive team is joining Netflix because of our shared belief that innovation should empower storytellers, not replace them. InterPositive’s impressive technology is purpose-built for filmmakers and showrunners to work with tools that naturally support their creative visions and how they want to bring them to life. We’re excited to welcome the InterPositive team to Netflix and continue building towards a future of entertainment where technology plays a part in how stories are made, but people — and their ideas, craft and judgment — remain at the core of great storytelling.”
Netflix’s acquisition of InterPositive is the latest development in Affleck’s relationship with the streamer. Affleck already has a streaming-first-look deal in place with Netflix and his and Matt Damon‘s production banner, Artists Equity. Then there’s “Animals,” Affleck’s next directing assignment, which will premiere on the streamer later this year; he also stars in that one, alongside Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson. Affleck also starred in “The Rip” with pal Damon, which debuted on Netflix on January 16.
InterPositive is an altogether different venture for Affleck from directing and Artists Equity, however. The multi-hyphenate has been a major critical voice in Hollywood’s conversation about AI for years now, stressing that while AI’s incursion into filmmaking may be certain, it should be looked at as a technology that will heighten craft and reduce costs, not replace artistic integrity. “Craftsmen can learn to make Stickley Furniture by sitting down next to somebody and seeing what their technique is and imitating. That’s how large video models, large language models, basically work. They’re just cross-pollinating things that exist. Nothing new is created,” Affleck said at the 2024 CNBC Delivery Alpha investors summit. “Craftsman is knowing how to work. Art is knowing when to stop. And I think knowing when to stop is going to be a very difficult thing for AI to learn because it’s taste. And also lack of consistency, lack of controls, lack of quality.”
Watch Affleck in conversation with Bajaria and Stone below. As for Netflix, their deal for InterPositive is their largest acquisition of an outside company since the purchase of Ready Player Me, now that the streamer ceded their bid for Warner Bros. to Paramount-Skydance.
