Netflix has acquired InterPositive, the AI filmmaking technology company founded by Ben Affleck.
The purchase brings the entire InterPositive team into Netflix, with Affleck on board as senior advisor. Affleck began looking at the use of AI in production in 2022, he says in the Netflix announcement—”I could see how these models came up short,” he said. “For artists to apply these tools towards telling the stories we dedicate our lives to, they need to be purpose-built to represent and protect all the qualities that make a great story: the nuances of filmmaking, the predictable—and unpredictable—challenges of production environments, the distortion of a lens or the way light shape-shifts across a scene.
“We also need to preserve what makes storytelling human, which is judgment. The kind that takes decades to build, experience to hone, and that only people can have. I knew I had a responsibility to my peers and our industry, to protect the power of human creativity and the people behind it. In creating InterPositive, I sought to do just that.”
The company set out to build an AI-powered production workflow “that captures what happens on a set, with vocabulary that matched the language cinematographers and directors already spoke and included the kind of consistency and controls they would expect.” The model was also built to “protect creative intent, so the tools are designed for responsible exploration while keeping creative decisions in the hands of artists—and ensuring that the benefits of this technology flow directly back to the story they’re trying to tell.”
Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s chief product and technology officer, added, “Our approach to AI has always been focused on meaningfully serving the needs of the creative community and our members. The InterPositive team is joining Netflix because of our shared belief that innovation should empower storytellers, not replace them. InterPositive’s impressive technology is purpose-built for filmmakers and showrunners to work with tools that naturally support their creative visions and how they want to bring them to life. We’re excited to welcome the InterPositive team to Netflix and continue building towards a future of entertainment where technology plays a part in how stories are made, but people—and their ideas, craft, and judgment—remain at the core of great storytelling.”
Bela Bajaria, Netflix chief content officer, added, “Our relationship with artists has always been grounded in trust: supporting the full range of their creativity and ensuring they have the power to decide how their films and shows are made. We believe new tools should expand creative freedom, not constrain it or replace the work of writers, directors, actors, and crews. Ben and his team at InterPositive are part of a long tradition in our industry of artists leading the way in how innovation is used in storytelling. Their work is about giving filmmakers more choices, more control, and more protection for their vision. We’re excited to build on that legacy together, with creators and their artistic intentions at the center of everything we do.”
