Meta Partners With Hollywood Blumhouse To Test Generative AI Model Movie Generative Gen

JAKARTA Meta, Facebook's parent company, announced on Thursday 17 October that it has teamed up with Blumhouse Productions, the Hollywood film studio behind popular horror films such as "The Purge" and "Get Out," to test a new generative AI video model called Movie Gen.

The announcement comes after Meta launched Movie Gen earlier this month, a tool that is claimed to be capable of creating realistic video and audio clips based on user orders. Meta states that this tool can compete with products from leading generative media startups such as OpenAI and ElevenLabs.

In a blog post, Meta said that Blumhouse had selected a number of filmmakers such as Anese Chaganty, The Spurlock Sisters, and Casey Affleck to try Movie Gen and use clips produced by this tool in their short films. The film Chaganty will appear on Meta's Movie Gen website, while the work of Affleck and The Spurlock Sisters will be released soon.

Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum stated that artists remain the soul of the industry and innovative technologies can help them in telling stories. Blum welcomed the opportunity for some filmmakers to test this advanced technology and provide input on its advantages and disadvantages during its development.

With this partnership, Meta hints at its intention to collaborate with the creative industry, which has tended to be wary of the presence of a generative AI technology due to copyright-related issues and approval. Meta argues that its AI training is protected by fair use doctrine in copyright laws.

However, Meta and other tech companies are showing their readiness to pay for certain content for AI. In addition to the Movie Gen partnership, Meta last month announced it had struck a deal with actors such as Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, and John Cena to voice Meta AI chatbots.

Meanwhile, Microsoft-backed OpenAI has also held meetings with Hollywood executives and agents to discuss possible partnerships using their generative video tool, Sora. Although no agreement has yet been reported from the meeting, Lions Gate Entertainment last September announced it has reached an agreement with another AI startup, Runway.