OpenAI Said to Court Hollywood in Meetings With Film Studios, Directors

OpenAI scheduled introductory conversations in Hollywood led by COO Brad Lightcap in late February.

OpenAI wants to break into the movie business.

The artificial intelligence startup has scheduled meetings in Los Angeles next week with Hollywood studios, media executives and talent agencies to form partnerships in the entertainment industry and encourage filmmakers to integrate its new AI video generator into their work, according to people familiar with the matter.

The upcoming meetings are just the latest round of outreach from OpenAI in recent weeks, said the people, who asked not to be named as the information is private. In late February, OpenAI scheduled introductory conversations in Hollywood led by Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap. Along with a couple of his colleagues, Lightcap demonstrated the capabilities of Sora, an unreleased new service that can generate realistic-looking videos up to about a minute in length based on text prompts from users. Days later, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman attended parties in Los Angeles during the weekend of the Academy Awards.

The ChatGPT maker unveiled Sora in mid-February with a series of high-definition clips that instantly captured the attention of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Sora isn't available to the public yet, but OpenAI has already granted access to a few big-name actors and directors.

“OpenAI has a deliberate strategy of working in collaboration with industry through a process of iterative deployment – rolling out AI advances in phases – in order to ensure safe implementation and to give people an idea of what's on the horizon,” a spokesperson for OpenAI said in a statement. “We look forward to an ongoing dialogue with artists and creatives.”

AI is a divisive subject in Hollywood. Many filmmakers and studios already rely on AI in pre-production and post-production, and recognize the promise of a new crop of artificial intelligence tools. But the rise of generative AI services — which can quickly spit out text, images, audio and, increasingly, short videos in response to queries from users — has also raised concerns about upending the livelihoods of everyone from illustrators to voice actors.

Screenwriters and actors went on strike last year in part to fight for protections with the use of the technology. Both unions later secured some safeguards for how AI is used in the entertainment industry. Media companies are also wary of allowing OpenAI to train its models on their work without compensating them. Outlets including CNN, Fox Corp. and Time Magazine have had discussions about licensing their work to OpenAI, Bloomberg has reported.

OpenAI is courting Hollywood as it tries to catch up with the competition. Technology giants Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google have previously unveiled text-to-video research projects. A growing number of well-funded AI startups, including Runway AI Inc., Pika and Stability AI, are working on this technology as well.

Runway, a leader in the market, previously told Bloomberg that its Gen-2 text-to-video service is already being used by millions of people, including professionals at production and animation studios who rely on it for previsualization and storyboarding. Film editors are also creating videos with Runway and combining them with other footage to make B-roll or visual effects, the company said.