By Gavin Boyle
AI-generated streaming platform Showrunner can generate an entire TV show episode from a simple prompt and is now landing licensing deals with major IP owners like Disney and Amazon.
“Hollywood streaming services are about to become a two-way entertainment,” said Showrunner founder Edward Saachi. “Audiences watching a season of a show [and] loving it will now be able to make new episodes with a few words and become characters with a photo.”
The goal is to create a widespread platform that subscribers will use to create and share new episodes of their favorite shows. The company already has backing from Amazon and is in talks with Disney as well to license some of its coveted IP.
“The vision is to be the Netflix of AI,” Saatchi explained. “Maybe you finish all of the episodes of a show you’re watching and you click the button to make another episode. You can say what it should be about or you can let the AI make it itself.”
“The next Netflix won’t be purely passive. You will be at home, describe the show you’d like to watch and within a minute or two start watching,” he continued. “Finish a show that you enjoy and make new episodes, and even put yourself and your friends in episodes – fighting aliens, in your favorite sitcom and solving crimes.”
The platform has already found success in creating new episodes of recognizable IP. Last year with its first AI model, it was able to create nine new episodes of the series SOUTH PARK without permission from the series’ creators. While the decision to use such a popular show as a proof of concept proved controversial, it also revealed just how successful the new platform could eventually be. These nine episodes eventually racked up 80 million views, showing there is a desire to generate and consume non-canon episodes of a TV show.
Nonetheless, Showrunner may never get the chance to fully launch as the entertainment industry introduces extreme guardrails against the use of AI. In 2023, the writers’ and actors’ guilds of Hollywood went on strike largely to introduce new protections against AI in their contracts with major studios. It remains unclear if allowing the public to generate AI episodes in this way would be a breach of contract, even if it has the blessing of the IP-owning studios.
Meanwhile, AI finds a home in other parts of the industry as well. Disney, for example, heavily considered using AI in its live action MOANA remake to ease the working hours of Dwayne Johnson, replacing him in some scenes with his cousin – who has a similar body – and using AI to superimpose Johnson’s face. Though none of these scenes ended up in the final cut of the movie, the consideration reveals how AI is continuing to creep into the industry.
Just how much AI will impact the entertainment industry in the near future is impossible to know, however, platforms like Showrunner represent the more ambitious attempts to overhaul the entire industry through the new technology.
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