Netflix has bought InterPositive, Ben Affleck‘s stealth AI post-production company.

From the media release:

“InterPositive’s mission — to use emerging technology in ways that protect and expand creative choice — is deeply aligned with Netflix’s long-standing belief that innovation should serve storytellers and the creative process.”

According to Variety:

“The InterPositive system builds an AI model based on an existing production’s dailies, then lets a filmmaker introduce that model into the postproduction process to provide the ability to do things like mix and color, relight shots, and add visual effects.”

Note that InterPositive owns a patent on technology that Ben invented called “Method, system, and computer-readable medium for training a captioner model to generate captions for video content by analyzing and predicting cinematic elements”. It describes systems designed for enhancing video content analysis and generation through cinematic element recognition and metadata utilization.

Price has not been disclosed.

My take: is this the beginning of Netflix turning into a “dream factory”? Imagine sitting down on the couch and prompting the movie you’d like to see. Or a spin-off with some of your favourite characters. Or — and I want this so much — “Yeah, this movie, but make it 90 minutes instead of two hours and forty-five minutes.”