Amazon MGM Studios is touting the facility of AI to assist create “cinematic” leisure in a giant new initiative — though execs are fast to say it’ll empower human inventive professionals, not substitute them.
The studio introduced the GenAI Creators’ Fund, which is offering funding and entry to AI manufacturing instruments to filmmakers, digital creators and tech startups for creating premium TV reveals and flicks. Amazon MGM Studios is teaming with sister group Amazon Internet Companies (AWS) to launch what they declare would be the business’s first purpose-built AI manufacturing platform for visible storytelling.
“The most important thing to remember is, we’re human-centric,” Albert Cheng, Amazon MGM Studios’ chief working officer, informed Selection. “AI tools are meant to empower human creativity, and allow TV shows and movies that would not have been possible before.”
Underneath the GenAI Creators’ Fund, the studio has greenlit three animated sequence for Prime Video: “Punky Duck” from Jorge R. Gutierrez (director of “The Book of Life”); “Love, Diana Music Hunters” from Albie Hecht, chief content material officer at pocket.watch (and the previous president of Nickelodeon who developed “SpongeBob SquarePants”); and “Cupcake & Friends” from BuzzFeed Studios. All three sequence will premiere on Prime Video however no dates have been set but.
The brand new initiative is being introduced on the 2026 AI on the Lot occasion Wednesday at Culver Studios.
Cheng declined to say how a lot cash recipients of Amazon’s GenAI Creators’ Fund will obtain. The grants are for creators to make proof-of-concept pilots and shorts; the studio then decides which of these to greenlight into full tasks. Along with the animated sequence, Amazon MGM Studios is working with one other creator creating a live-action brief (whom Cheng declined to establish). In all of the AI-enabled tasks, the creators are working with human actors and voice actors, Cheng mentioned.
The Amazon MGM-AWS AI manufacturing platform is dubbed Undertaking Nara, which is being made obtainable completely to creators picked for the GenAI Creators’ Fund. The businesses describe Undertaking Nara as a “collaborative workspace” designed for groups that integrates AI manufacturing brokers with manufacturing instruments creators already use (similar to Maya, Blender, Nuke, Unreal Engine and Adobe’s suite of merchandise). It’s constructed round a “model-agnostic architecture,” which means it combines the perfect obtainable third-party video fashions with proprietary fashions. Undertaking Nara additionally has “provenance tracking” to make sure the safety of mental property.
“One of the biggest complaints we hear from creators is: AI will not do what you want it to do,” Cheng mentioned. Generative-AI video techniques at the moment are geared towards social media, he mentioned, and “We are turning those models into usable tools for the industry.”
In response to Cheng, Undertaking Nara guarantees to cut back the whole value of productions and make them quicker. With the three preliminary companions, Amazon gave them a deadline of 5 weeks to finish their pilots “to prove it can be done quickly,” Cheng mentioned. Plus, he mentioned, as a result of administrators can what a particular scene will seem like earlier within the course of (i.e., earlier than the beginning of principal images) they’ll make inventive changes on-set.
What’s distinctive about Amazon’s strategy is that it’s each a studio and a expertise firm, mentioned Samira Panah Bakhtiar, GM of media and leisure, video games and sports activities for AWS.
“Amazon has quietly and methodically assembled the only end-to-end AI content creation ecosystem in the industry, spanning from infrastructure to creative tools to distribution and funding of creative content,” Bakhtiar mentioned. “Project Nara illustrates how AWS can help filmmakers of all kinds bring AI to the full creative pipeline, from concept to screen, using a wide range of familiar models and tools on a cloud trusted by the entertainment industry.”
Listed here are the loglines of the tasks Amazon MGM Studios of greenlit beneath then new AI fund:
- “Punky Duck”: A lovable punk duck and his greatest buddy, Smiley Cat, tear by means of a wildly exaggerated Los Angeles, hilariously stumbling into alien invasions, big monsters, robotic prison conspiracies, telenovela-style household drama and supernatural mayhem — all whereas attempting (and often failing) to do the proper factor. Created by Jorge R. Gutierrez, writer-director of animated function “The Book of Life” for twentieth Century Studios and creator of “El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera” for Nickelodeon and “Maya and the Three” for Netflix.
- “Love, Diana Music Hunters”: Based mostly on pocket.watch creator associate Diana, the most-followed woman on YouTube, a younger band of Ok-pop space-traveling musicians races to Planet Goo, the place they have to carry out a live performance to revive the music and save the aliens. Created by Albie Hecht at pocket.watch.
- “Cupcake & Friends”: A relatable cupcake and her associates face the hilarious and thrilling challenges of a sleepover, with sudden twists at each nook. Created by BuzzFeed Studios.
