Meta is partnering with horror filmmaker Blumhouse Productions to explore Movie Gen

Facebook owner Meta said Thursday it has teamed up with Blumhouse Productions, the Hollywood company behind popular horror films like “The Purge” and “Get Out,” to test its new AI video model for Movie Gen.

The announcement comes after Meta introduced Movie Gen, which it says can create realistic-looking video clips and audio clips in response to user input, earlier this month. Meta said the tool could compete with offerings from leading media generation startups such as OpenAI and ElevenLabs.

In a blog post, the media company said Blumhouse has chosen filmmakers Aneesh Chaganty, The Spurlock Sisters and Casey Affleck to try Movie Gen and use clips generated by the tool in their short films.

Chaganty’s film would appear on Meta’s Movie Gen website, while films from Affleck and The Spurlock Sisters would follow, Meta said.

The CEO of Blumhouse, Jason Blum, in a statement said that artists are still the backbone of the industry and new technology can help them tell stories.

“We welcomed the opportunity for some of them to test this advanced technology and give their notes on the pros and cons while it was being developed,” said Blum. “These will be powerful tools for directors, and it is important to involve the creative industry in their development to ensure they are the best fit for the job.”

Through the partnership, Meta is showing how it intends to work with the creative industries, whose members have been more reluctant to respond to the advent of artificial intelligence technology due to concerns about copyright and permission.

Several groups of copyright holders have sued major technology companies, including Meta, for unauthorized use of their works to train artificial intelligence systems. Meta has pointed out that its AI training is protected by the fair use copyright doctrine.

However, Meta and other tech companies have shown they are willing to pay for certain types of AI content. In addition to the Movie Gen partnership, Meta said last month that it had agreements with actors including Judi Dench, Kristen Bell and John Cena to voice their opinions on Meta AI.

Similarly, Microsoft-backed OpenAI has been meeting with Hollywood executives and agents this year to discuss potential partnerships involving its video production tool Sora, which it debuted in February.

No deals have been reported to come out of those talks yet, although Lions Gate Entertainment said in September that it had reached an agreement with another AI startup, Runway.

-Katie Paul, Reuters

Additional reporting by Dawn Chmielewski.