Meta partners with Hollywood’s Blumhouse to test out its AI movie generation model

By Katie Paul

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Facebook (NASDAQ:) owner Meta said on Thursday it had teamed up with Blumhouse Productions, the Hollywood company behind popular horror films such as “The Purge” and “Get Out,” to put its new generative AI video model Movie Gen to the test.

The announcement comes after Meta unveiled Movie Gen, which it said can create realistic-seeming video and audio clips in response to user prompts, earlier this month. Meta claimed the tool could rival offerings from leading media generation startups such as OpenAI and ElevenLabs.

In a blog post, the social media company said Blumhouse had selected filmmakers Aneesh Chaganty, The Spurlock Sisters and Casey Affleck to try out Movie Gen and use clips generated by the tool in their short films.

Chaganty’s film would appear on Meta’s Movie Gen website, while films from Affleck and The Spurlock Sisters were forthcoming, Meta said.

Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum said in a statement that artists remain the lifeblood of the industry and innovative technology can aid in their storytelling. 

“We welcomed the chance for some of them to test this cutting-edge technology and give their notes on its pros and cons while it’s still in development,” Blum said. “These are going to be powerful tools for directors, and it’s important to engage the creative industry in their development to make sure they’re best suited for the job.”

With the partnership, Meta is signaling how it aims to collaborate with creative industries, whose members have largely recoiled in response to the arrival of generative AI technologies over concerns around copyright and consent.

Several groups of copyright owners have sued major tech companies, including Meta, over the unauthorized use of their works to train generative AI systems. Meta has argued its AI training is protected by the copyright doctrine of fair use.

However, Meta and other tech companies have shown they are willing to pay for certain types of content for AI. Aside from the Movie Gen partnership, Meta said last month it had struck deals with actors including Judi Dench, Kristen Bell and John Cena to give voice to its Meta AI chatbot.

Similarly, Microsoft-backed OpenAI has been meeting with Hollywood executives and agents this year to discuss possible partnerships involving its video generation tool Sora, which it first showed off in February.

No deals have been reported to have come out of those talks yet, though Lions Gate Entertainment said in September that it had struck a deal with another AI startup, Runway.