For anyone who’s ever thought Hollywood’s output is formulaic and tired, the movie industry may be about to get worse. Major studio Warner Bros. has signed a deal with Cinelytic, which has developed an AI-powered system that can predict the likelihood of a film’s success based on such factors as actors, budget and brand.
Predictably enough, Warner Bros. will be using Cinelytic‘s software as part of the research process it undergoes when deciding which movies to commission. Cinelytic’s platform can determine the ‘value’ (i.e. profitability) of an actor in any major territory and also calculate how much money a film is likely to earn in cinemas and through supplementary merchandising (e.g. DVDs).
While it obviously can’t measure how good a film will be artistically, Warner Bros. will likely use it during early production phases to separate ideas likely to succeed from those that most likely aren’t.
And it would seem that Warner Bros. won’t be the only film studio integrating AI into its decision-making processes. In fact, AI has already received a modest amount of use by studios up until now, so Warner Bros. entry is likely to open the floodgates even further.
For example, 20th Century Fox has been using a system called Merlin for several years now.
Source: Forbes
