Amazon Using AI to Recreate ‘Holy Grail’ of Lost Movies

Amazon-backed AI firm Showrunner will attempt to reconstruct a lost segment of footage from a film many consider to be one of the greatest examples of lost movies.

What movie is being recreated with AI?

According to a report from THR, Showrunner will reconstruct the destroyed 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ 1942 period drama The Magnificent Ambersons. The movie, which is based on Booth Tarkington’s 1918 novel, follows the story of the declining fortunes of a wealthy family in the Midwest during the age of the automobile.

Although a version of The Magnificent Ambersons was released in 1942, the film remains legendary for its lost footage. Welles ceded final cut of the film to RKO Pictures, and after poor audience response in test footage, RKO deleted more than 40 minutes of footage from the movie, which has been since classified as lost media and never recovered.

Welles didn’t approve of the cuts, but was filming another movie, It’s All True (which never released and remains unfinished) for RKO, and thus couldn’t protect his version of the movie. Many filmmakers, including the late William Friedkin, said the film’s original cut was considered a “holy grail” amongst film fans.

According to THR’s report, Showrunner’s attempt at reconstructing the film in AI is being done solely as an experiment to test their new AI model, which they say is designated to generate long, complex narratives. The footage won’t be commercialized, as Showrunner doesn’t own the rights to the film. However, it’s unknown if the footage will be released in any capacity.

“Year by year, the technology is getting closer to prompting entire films with AI,” Showrunner CEO Edward Saatchi said. “Today, AI can’t sustain a story beyond one short episode,” but believes that Showrunner’s new model is a “step toward a scary, strange future of generative storytelling.”

(Source: The Hollywood Reporter)

Source: Comingsoon.net