Remember when OpenAI was supposed to upend Hollywood by making a fully AI-generated animated movie? Such a feat would’ve been curtains for studios like Pixar, which spend hundreds of millions of dollars on each film. It would be a proof-of-concept that a magical AI model could churn out a family friendly box office hit for a fraction of that amount, in a fraction of the time.

Of course, like many AI industry promises, that ambition hasn’t panned out yet. The film, “Critterz,” was intended to debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, but missed out on that deadline after OpenAI shuttered its Sora AI video generator, Bloomberg reports. 

With OpenAI’s “Toy Story” moment sounding like yet another shuttered dream, the film’s creators are now looking for a new AI partner to continue making the film. In an interview with Bloomberg, co-producers Chad Nelson, an OpenAI creative strategist, and James Richardson said that they’re now aiming to release “Critterz” in the first quarter of next year. 

Despite the setbacks, the “Critterz” crew are still claiming that AI can still work filmmaking miracles — if filmmaking was about wrapping up quickly with as few people as possible and nothing else.

“A film like this would have taken three years and maybe 300 people, or four years and 200 people, and we’re doing it in nine months with 15 people,” Richardson said at the festival, per Bloomberg.

While the film will likely still get made, it’s an embarrassing setback for OpenAI. “Critterz” was supposed to build on a short animated film of the same name made with OpenAI’s older DALL-E model by using its new Sora video generating tool. 

But Sora was unexpectedly shut down in March, less than three months after OpenAI signed what was viewed as a landmark licensing deal with Disney, with reports suggesting that it was losing the company millions of dollars per day. Rather than a testament to AI’s progress, it underscores the vicissitudes of the AI industry. If you’re an AI “filmmaker,” your entire project could be doomed if an AI company pulls the plug on one of its costly models.

In a statement to Bloomberg, OpenAI downplayed its role in the film, despite its producer Nelson being one of its creative strategists.

“Critterz” is “an independent film created by its filmmakers, who are experimenting with OpenAI’s tools as part of their creative process,” an OpenAI spokesperson told the newspaper. “OpenAI is neither the film’s financier nor its producer.”

Nelson and Richardson say they’re shopping around “Critterz” at Cannes — where other AI experiments abound, albeit not necessarily at the actual film festival — claiming that distributors, studios and streamers showed “huge enthusiasm” for their project.

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