March 27, 2025
Hollywood 2.0 Finds Seed Funding
Dear Subscriber,
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| By Chris Graebe |
While many in Hollywood are reluctant to let AI take over, it has already made its way into the pipelines and workflows of many major companies — and there’s no turning back.
AI startups are creating tools in video production that are just too valuable for studios, big and small, not to use.
Tasks that would traditionally take a team hours to finish can now be completed automatically in seconds.
OpenAI has become the gold standard for text generation. But the competition for generative video and multimedia tools is heating up.
Google, Netflix and Amazon are heavily investing in these technologies. And because of these big blue chips, the startup landscape is booming.
Runway AI
“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which won Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards, stands out as one of the first major films to openly incorporate AI into its production.
The same technology they used has also been used by “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Top Gear America, Alicia Keys in a music video and even New Balance to design shoes.
This breakthrough comes from Runway AI, a startup that offers a suite of video solutions including generative video, generative audio, background removal and many other post-production capabilities.
Runway has already attracted $236.5 million in early-stage investment from major players like Google and Nvidia. It also boasts partnerships with Lionsgate, the Tribeca Film Festival and Amazon Web Services.
Startups like Runway are reshaping the entertainment landscape. Its technology empowers even small studios to create characters, sequences and effects that were once only possible by industry giants like Industrial Light & Magic and Wētā Workshop.
AI Dubbing
Usually, for a movie to be released in foreign markets, studios would hire teams of translators and voice actors to create subtitles or record a dub track.
The challenge here is making subtitles that carry the same weight as the original dialogue … and dubbed voices capable of rivaling the original performances … costs studios time and money. And sometimes the result isn't up to par with the original.
Using AI, dubbing can be done better than ever before. So much so that the audience can't even tell that a movie has been translated and dubbed over.
“Watch the Skies” is an upcoming sci-fi movie from Sweden that’s being called “the world’s first AI-visual dubbed film.”
Visual dubbing, or vubbing, is a brand-new technology. It uses AI face-mapping to change the face of an actor to perfectly match the dubbed audio.
In other words, the actors who were originally speaking Swedish now appear to be speaking English, and it’s nearly flawless.
The appropriately named AI startup, Flawless, pioneered this revolutionary technology.
Now, audiences in foreign markets can enjoy foreign-language films without having to read subtitles or see the obvious disconnect between actors' mouths and the dubbed words they’re saying.
Thanks to Flawless, “Watch the Skies” can now better reach the massive English-speaking market.
This is just the first feature film to use such technology. And many more are sure to follow suit.
Flawless AI was founded in 2020 in the U.K. In just a short time, it raised $33.5 million in seed funding.
It's very likely that Flawless or a similar company could be acquired by a major streaming service to improve their dubbing in the near future.
Celebrity Pushback & Legal Concerns
Not everyone in Hollywood is on board with the AI takeover.
Copyright is a sensitive topic right now. And many big names in the industry have banded together to stand up against AI companies using copyrighted works to train their models and the voices of artists made by AI.
A week and a half ago, over 420 entertainment industry insiders, including Paul McCartney, Bette Midler, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Stiller and Paul Simon signed an open letter to the U.S. government.
They want to see regulations for AI companies.
The issue comes down to copyright law — how celebrity likenesses generated by AI can be used … and whether AI companies should be allowed to train their models using copyrighted works.
Imagine that an AI model is trained extensively on music from The Beatles.
After downloading the entire Beatles catalog and studying it for thousands of hours, the AI is asked to produce similar music. That can then be used for profit with no credit to the original creators.
The question is if that should be allowed or what limitations should be placed on AI companies.
Another major concern relates to deepfakes and AI replicas.
We have seen several viral cases of AI being used to replicate celebrities' voices.
Last year, a mostly unknown artist published a song online that used AI to nearly perfectly replicate the voices of Drake and The Weeknd.
The song was spread around on social media and became popular enough to elicit a response from Universal Music Group, which stated the song infringes on its copyrights.
In an ironic twist, shortly after, Drake turned around and did the same thing. He revived Tupac Shakur with AI and used that voice in a song, which nearly led to a lawsuit from the Shakur estate.
Congress is being urged to take a look at the current state of AI in entertainment and address the confusion and concerns around how it can use copyrighted works.
Even so, startups and investors in the space aren’t slowing down.
Suno is one of the most popular AI music tools on the market. It also operates in this new copyright gray area.
It allows users to compose lyrics, melodies and instrumentals with just the click of a button. It’s has already gained widespread adoption by casual users as well as industry professionals.
Suno is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners. And, despite having only been around for about two years, it’s already earned $125 million in seed funding.
We’ll have to see how governments choose to address this emerging technology, but it’s clear that AI isn’t just a fad and will continue to gain more use cases and wider adoption throughout the entertainment industry.
Happy hunting!
Chris Graebe
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