Less than a week after dropping out of the bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix has made a smaller but intriguing acquisition of an AI firm founded by Ben Affleck.
InterPositive, which makes tools developed by and intended for filmmakers, had been in stealth mode prior to the transaction. As of Thursday, it is part of Netflix, with its 16 employees to be integrated into the broader workforce.
The deal builds on comments from management as AI has exploded onto the scene in the past few years, with executives stressing the ways it will improve quality rather than reduce the number of crew members. (“There’s a better business and a bigger business in making content 10% better than it is making it 50% cheaper,” Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in 2024.) Nevertheless, the acquisition is sure to be scrutinized, as it comes as above-the-line unions are embarking on a new round of talks with studios and streamers, including Netflix. The aim of the talks is to avoid a repeat of the 2023 strikes, which centered in part on the perceived AI threat.
Netflix declined to comment on the financial terms of the deal. Valuations have been skyrocketing in the AI sector, not only at the top end with jumbo startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, but also in the entertainment realm. Luma AI, Runway and other emerging companies focused on video production are worth billions based on recent funding rounds.
The InterPositive purchase stemmed from the strong relationship between Netflix and Affleck. They reaffirmed those ties earlier this week, setting a first-look deal with Artists Equity, the new-model production company led by Affleck and Matt Damon. Affleck first mentioned his AI venture to Netflix execs last fall, initiating months of dialogue that culminated in the acquisition, a person familiar with the talks told Deadline.
Affleck said he began focusing on the emergence of AI in 2022, admitting he initially was unsettled by the notion of computers playing a key role in production. The more he familiarized himself with what was being developed – and was alerted to some tech firms trying to, as he put it in a video released by Netflix, “get the human out of it” – he refined InterPositive’s focus.
The firm will seek to create tools “purpose-built to represent and protect all the qualities that make a great story: the nuances of filmmaking, the predictable – and unpredictable – challenges of production environments, the distortion of a lens or the way light shape-shifts across a scene,” Affleck said. “We also need to preserve what makes storytelling human, which is judgment.”
The InterPositive tools do not rely on text-to-video prompts, but instead a storehouse of visual data created by human actors on a secure soundstage and used to train the company’s proprietary models.
The nature of the transaction, a full acquisition, means InterPositive’s technology can only be used by Netflix. That differs from the licensing approach, which fits with the vendor process used for decades across most studio operations. Disney recently opted for a licensing pact with OpenAI, giving it access to select character IP in exchange for an investment, though it also showed it is staying vigilant by firing off a cease-and-desist letter to Google about its AI efforts.
Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria said the company’s relationship with the creative community “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. 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.”
Chief Technology and Product Officer Elizabeth Stone echoed that sentiment, saying the deal is consistent with the company’s general approach to AI. “The InterPositive team is joining Netflix because of our shared belief that innovation should empower storytellers, not replace them,” she said in a statement.
Source:
deadline.com
