It’s an auspicious day when I catch up with the Wonder Studios boys: Xavier Collins and Justin Hackney have literally just moved the company into new offices inside a converted neo-Gothic church in East London. Though the church is home, it is not a place of worship in the traditional sense, but Wonder does believe in the higher power of artificial intelligence.

Collins and Hackney founded Wonder a year ago with a mission to become the A24 of AI production. Since then, the company has raised $15 million to hit a $50 million valuation, collaborated with Lewis Capaldi (and another, as-yet unnamed music superstar), run an AI filmmaking scheme mentored by Danny Boyle, developed production workflow technology, and produced re-creation scenes for The Real Wolf of Wall Street, an upcoming documentary about Jordan Belfort. And that’s just the stuff they have permission to share. “It’s exceeded expectations,” Collins says.

Collins came up through the tech world, via spells at firms including Deliveroo. Hackney has mixed filmmaking with new tech during a career that included a spell at ElevenLabs, the AI audio company. They met when Collins collaborated with ElevenLabs to re-create the voice of Alain Dorval, the French actor who dubbed for Sylvester Stallone. Over rosé in Cannes, they decided to launch Wonder.

If Collins is the funding whisperer, landing investors like Atomico and ElevenLabs’ Mati Staniszewski, Hackney is at the creative coalface with AI models. Raising cash is never straightforward, but Collins says it has been like “playing on easy mode” when Wonder showcases its work, as with Capaldi’s “Something in the Heavens” music video.

The haunting song is complemented by AI visuals of water enveloping those seeking out loved ones in the afterlife. Produced using Google tools, the video has amassed 1.6 million views and 26,000 likes, meaning it dodged the opprobrium some AI endeavors face on YouTube. Hackney says 15 artists worked on the video, but “not a single shot” could have been filmed traditionally within the video’s budget.

What does he make of AI skepticism? “It’s about showing the creative unlocks,” Hackney says, adding that “if you’re not getting friction online, maybe you’re not doing something right.”

Collins chimes in: “There’s always going to be reticence from certain people, but we’ve leaned in where we felt the pull.” He adds that the demand for AI content is only going to grow. “We’re all in this small boat trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean,” he said. “There’s a trillion-dollar industry on the other side.”

The ambition is to make an AI feature film, perhaps even with Boyle, who mentored the Black Mirror-style YouTube anthology series Beyond the Loop (Season 2 is coming in 2026). But Collins prefers to speak in grander terms about Wonder’s vision.

“We could be one of the defining entertainment companies of the future,” he evangelizes. Welcome to the church of Wonder.