Arcana Labs, which produced the AI-generated sci-fi short film “Echo Hunter,” is now tackling a family friendly animation film as its next big project.
The AI production studio said it had optioned “The Furry Wild West,” a full-length animated feature from Grammy nominated musician and children’s author Oren Lavie. The action-comedy is a kid-friendly take on the spaghetti Western, following a notorious lion gunslinger and his canine sidekick.
Unlike other AI-generated productions, the technology will be utilized in the animation stage, with artists coming up with the scripts, designs, storyboards, characters, settings and executing on shots designed by humans ahead of time. Essentially, AI fills in the gaps by adding movement between stills.
The process preserves much of the human element in creating an animated film, a form of AI assistance that’s more palatable than the idea of a large language model spitting out something purely on prompts. This stands in contrast with fully AI-generated projects, many of which Hollywood has written off as slop.
The notion of AI assistance in production — where the technology aids in more of the rote work while filmmakers still handle the grander vision — has picked up steam in the industry as a counter to full AI generation.
The other advantage is one Hollywood studios are interested in: cost. An insider said “The Furry Wild West” will cost less than 10% of the typical $100 million budget for an animated film. AI boosters have long said the cost savings enabled by the technology could lead to more projects being green lit.
“Oren wrote a great film about being seen for who you are – and for years, an original script like this only got made if a major studio said yes,” said Arcana Labs CEO Jonathan Yunger. “Now, those gatekeepers are disappearing.”
“I love mixing different forms of storytelling in my work. With ‘The Furry Wild West,’ we have a chance to reinvent the Wild West, which I loved as a child and still do, and populate it with an entire society of furry animals. It’s a huge undertaking that requires imagination alongside serious production muscle,” said Lavie, who was nominated for a Grammy for his YouTube stop-motion music video “Her Morning Elegance.” “The team at Arcana saw the potential immediately and committed to providing a unique set of tools, working alongside traditional animation techniques, to help me bring this world to life exactly the way I imagine it.”
Erik Feig (the “Step Up” franchise, “Borderlands”) is serving as producer.
This announcement comes as tensions in Hollywood remain over the warmer embrace of AI by studios, from Netflix’s acquisition of Ben Affleck’s startup InterPositive to Amazon launching a GenAI Creators’ Fund. Arcana had previously tried to bridge the gap, getting SAG-AFTRA approval for “Echo Hunter” and its cast, which starred Breckin Meyer.
Arcana said other studios are utilizing the same kind of AI assistance techniques with its AI tools on various animation projects, but the company declined to specify.
The film doesn’t have a distributor yet.
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