The influx of AI into the filmmaking process has raised alarms, but some also see it as an inevitable trend. Netflix has already started using AI in its films and TV shows, while other studios are experimenting with AI-powered storytelling. The latest AI move takes a stab at reviving the “mutilated” classic that is Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons.
What’s happening?
Just over a year ago, Amazon invested in a company named Fable, which calls itself the “Netflix of AI” and is led by Edward Saatchi, a former senior executive at Meta’s Oculus division. Saatchi recently appeared in a CNBC interview and announced plans to rescue the lost footage from Welles’ highly-regarded film. Discussing the AI tech stack and his company’s work, Saatchi mentioned that “it’s potentially the end of human creativity.”
When the film was released in 1942, roughly 43 minutes of the original footage shot by Welles were trimmed and destroyed, replaced by a happier ending version, which was not approved by Welles. “The Magnificent Ambersons, unlocks for us, live action,” Saatchi said during the interview, adding that his firm will use AI to bring the lost footage back to life.
The lost footage, which has an altogether different ending to the film, was never recovered. “They destroyed Ambersons and it destroyed me,” Welles later said. In 2021, Turner Classic Movies joined hands with filmmaker Joshua Grossberg for a documentary titled The Search for the Lost Print: The Making of Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons.
Does a lost masterpiece need AI?
In 2023, another filmmaker, Brian Rose, reconstructed and animated some of the lost material using the surviving screenplay and storyboard portions of the original cut. The original version shot by Welles, often referred to as the “Holy Grail of cinema,” remains an enigma to date. Rose will now be helping Fable reconstruct the lost footage using traditional filmmaking techniques and AI processing.
Archived pictures will be used as a starting material by Fable, with subsequent plans of “shooting some sequences with live actors, with plans to use face and pose transfer techniques with AI tools to preserve the likenesses of the original actors in the movie,” per The Hollywood Reporter. The AI-generated version of the film created by Fable won’t be commercialized because the company has yet to receive official rights from Warner Bros. Discovery or Concord.
The late legend’s estate, however, is not too happy about Fable’s move. “This attempt to generate publicity on the back of Welles’ creative genius is disappointing, especially as we weren’t even given the courtesy of a heads up,” it was quoted as saying by Variety, adding that they retain the rights to AI video likeness and weren’t informed by Fable about their plans.
