During a recent Bloomberg Screentime gathering, the actor-director Ben Affleck opened up about the role artificial intelligence played in the production of his upcoming Netflix thriller Animals. While the film centers on a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped, the behind-the-scenes conversation focused on a very different kind of rescue: safeguarding creative ownership while still leveraging cutting-edge technology.
Building a proprietary, copyright-free AI pipeline
Affleck stressed that his team refused to train any model on material that is copyrighted or that belongs to a peer whose work they admire. “We assembled a completely proprietary dataset so the system would never have to be extractive” he explained. The approach means the AI tools used on Animals were fed only with footage and assets specifically created for the production, eliminating the risk of unintentionally borrowing from existing works.
He also dismissed the notion of a “type-and-render” workflow where a screenplay could be generated by simply typing prompts. “That kind of magic isn’t something audiences will ever care about,” Affleck said. Instead, he envisions AI as a post-production aid—a discreet set of utilities that can improve visual consistency or streamline routine tasks without ever replacing an actor or a director.
Clearing up the Matt Damon misunderstanding
Earlier this year, Matt Damon sparked controversy on a popular podcast, suggesting Netflix pressures creators to insert a major action set-piece within the first five minutes and to repeat plot points throughout a film. Affleck, who is currently promoting Animals argued that Damon’s remarks were taken out of context. “Someone pulled a quote and ran with it,” he said. “If that were truly Netflix policy, I’d be the one shouting about it on a mic.”
Affleck noted that the level of creative freedom he enjoys on his projects likely exceeds that of many other filmmakers, especially given his recent sale of the AI startup InterPositive to Netflix for close to $600 million. He reiterated that Netflix has not issued any such “idiotic” notes, and that studio interference predates streaming giants by decades.
InterPositive, the AI venture, and the broader industry picture
The AI company InterPositive, founded by Affleck several years ago, was built around a model tuned specifically for cinematic imagery. By feeding the model thousands of hours of original footage, the team produced a tool that can suggest framing, lighting, or subtle visual enhancements while remaining fully under the director’s control.
Affleck argued that giving these capabilities to actual filmmakers, rather than to faceless tech platforms, yields far superior results. “When you hand the technology to people who understand storytelling, the output is richer and more respectful of the craft,” he said. He also warned that the hype around completely AI-generated movies is premature, describing current systems as “deeply limited,” non-sentient, and far from the sci-fi scenarios of Terminator-style narratives.
As Animals prepares to roll out in select theaters and on Netflix on October 9, the conversation surrounding its production may become a case study for how Hollywood can integrate artificial intelligence without compromising artistic integrity or legal safety nets.
