Netflix announced on March 5 that it is acquiring InterPositive, an artificial intelligence filmmaking technology company founded in 2022 by actor Ben Affleck.
InterPositive’s entire team will join Netflix, with Affleck staying on as a senior adviser, according to a news release. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
“Our approach to AI has always been focused on meaningfully serving the needs of the creative community and our members,” Netflix chief product and technology officer Elizabeth Stone said in the press release. “The InterPositive team is joining Netflix because of our shared belief that innovation should empower storytellers, not replace them.”
Affleck said that he spent a lot of time observing the early rise of AI production in 2022 and that InterPositive isn’t trying to make AI actors, but rather a model that helps production teams make post-production edits, such as missed shots, background replacements, and lighting.
“I knew I had a responsibility to my peers and our industry, to protect the power of human creativity and the people behind it. In creating InterPositive, I sought to do just that,” he said in the press release.
Affleck said he and a team of engineers trained the first model on a proprietary dataset on a controlled soundstage that resembled a real production set.
He added that he and his team have built in restraints to keep creative decisions in the hands of artists.
“The results of this foundational work were deliberately smaller datasets and models focused on filmmaking techniques—rather than performances—creating tools that artists can use, control and benefit from,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier for this work to continue with the team at Netflix, and look forward to providing the broader creative community with access to what we build.”
Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria agreed that new tools should expand creative freedom and not constrain or replace the work of those in the film industry.
Actor Ben Affleck attends the premiere of the Warner Bros. Pictures film <span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span>Justice League<span style="font-weight: 400;">”</span> at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Nov. 13, 2017. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
“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. Their work is about giving filmmakers more choices, more control and more protection for their vision,” Bajaria said in the press release.
The announcement came shortly after Netflix was outlasted in a long bidding war against film studio Paramount, which purchased Warner Bros. Discovery for $110 billion in February after Warner Bros. Discovery previously agreed to sell most of its assets to Netflix for $72 billion in December. As part of the deal, Paramount will pay a $2.8 billion breakup fee to Netflix.
