London-based AI inventive studio Marvel Studios has raised $12 million in seed funding to scale manufacturing amid a push to carry AI-generated content material into the leisure trade.
The spherical was led by Atomico, alongside present buyers LocalGlobe and Blackbird, and builds on Marvel’s pre-seed funding, which included executives from ElevenLabs, Google DeepMind, and OpenAI.
Marvel will use the recent funds to double its engineering crew and speed up its push into IP possession and unique content material manufacturing. The crew just lately produced an AI music video for Lewis Capaldi’s “One thing within the Heavens,” created with DeepMind, YouTube, and Common Music Group. Marvel additionally launched its first unique manufacturing, the “Past the Loop” anthology sequence.
Marvel is engaged on a number of industrial and unique tasks for launch subsequent 12 months, together with an upcoming documentary with Campfire Studios, the manufacturing firm behind Netflix documentaries “The Menendez Brothers” and “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.” Campfire’s CEO Ross Dinerstein is an investor within the startup.
The drive for IP possession emerges amid a wave of authorized actions from Hollywood producers focusing on AI firms — each for coaching fashions on their content material and for producing outputs that includes copyrighted characters. Disney and Common Studios, for instance, have sued Chinese language firm MiniMax, in addition to AI picture generator Midjourney.
Marvel’s increase additionally comes as Netflix goes “all in” on generative AI as a approach to make creatives extra environment friendly at storytelling.
AI stays a divisive problem in leisure, with artists involved that instruments powered by LLMs, which have typically been skilled on their work with out consent, may threaten their livelihoods. OpenAI’s Sora 2 has come beneath specific criticism for reproducing actors’ likenesses with out discover or consent.
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Marvel positions itself as “Hollywood with out borders,” serving to to make AI storytelling instruments accessible to all creators. The startup’s app serves as a hub connecting its group of creators with profession alternatives, collaborators, and sources, based on the corporate.
“The subsequent decade will outline what creativity appears like within the age of AI,” mentioned Justin Hackney, chief industrial officer and co-founder of Marvel Studios. “Our mission is to make sure that this future belongs to the storytellers. Working with main studios, trade pioneers, and grassroots filmmakers, we’re already making a bridge the place know-how and artistry develop collectively.”
Clarification: A earlier headline misstated OpenAI’s involvement in Marvel Studios.
