From the Los Angeles Times, July 21:
- Netflix has paid $587 million to acquire Ben Affleck’s AI film-tech startup InterPositive, a blockbuster bet on using generative tools to reshape how movies and series get made.
- Founded in 2022 to keep “storytelling human,” InterPositive builds filmmaker-focused AI that speeds complex shots and postproduction while promising to preserve creative control on Netflix’s sets and soundstages.
- The exclusive deal lands as Netflix leans on AI across roughly 300 productions, even as its stock slumps and Hollywood unions press for strict protections for human performances.
Netflix has revealed just how big it is betting on artificial intelligence, shelling out more than half a billion dollars for one of the early AI movers in Hollywood.
In March, the Los Gatos-based company announced it was acquiring Ben Affleck’s AI film tech company, InterPositive. A new securities filing shows that the streaming giant paid $587 million for the “Good Will Hunting” actor’s company. The disclosure was made last week in a Netflix filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
InterPositive was founded in 2022, when Affleck began to worry about how AI could affect the film industry.
The company is focused on developing “AI-powered tools built by and for filmmakers” and using new technology to “protect and expand creative choice,” according to Netflix’s news release in March. The streamer said it is “investing in creator-led innovation that keeps filmmakers at the center of the process” and that the tech will be exclusive to Netflix....
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