Sony Will Use AI to Cut Film Costs, Says CEO Tony Vinciquerra
The next “Spider-Verse” film may have a new animation style: AI.
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) CEO Tony Vinciquerra does not mince words when it comes to artificial intelligence. He likes the tech — or at the very least, he likes the economics.
“We are very focused on AI. The biggest problem with making films today is the expense,” Vinciquerra said at Sony’s Thursday (Friday in Japan) investor event. “We will be looking at ways to…produce both films for theaters and television in a more efficient way, using AI primarily.”
That’s about the strongest support for AI we’ve heard from a film studio head.
Vinciquerra knows how controversial his comments could be with creatives.
“We had an 8-month strike over AI last year,” Vinciquerra began his response to the first analyst question (from Nomura Securities) during his Q&A portion of the annual event. He also acknowledged that ongoing IATSE talks and the forthcoming Teamsters negotiations are “both over AI again.”
The sum total of those discussions between Hollywood’s workers and its studios will inform just how far Vinciquerra and others can go.
“The agreements that came out of last year’s strikes and the agreements that come out of the IATSE and Teamsters [negotiations] will define roughly what we can do with AI,” Vinciquerra said.
Vinciquerra fielded several more questions from analysts, though none were directly about the possibility of Sony purchasing Paramount — with or without (probably with) private-equity firm Apollo. It wasn’t quite a missed opportunity: Vinciquerra couldn’t have said much about those ongoing talks anyway. He did, however, make general M&A comments (when asked) that one can surely read into.
“We’re looking for strategic investments… that complement our strategy,” he said. “We are not going to go outside the strategy that has been enormously successful for us over the past several years.”
SPE has quite famously maintained an arms-dealer approach to the streaming wars. Beyond (and after) theatrical releases, it tends to license content to Netflix.
“We will not make investments that don’t complement our current strategy, and our strategy is to have more IP, more product, more library to sell,” Vinciquerra said. “We’re not gonna get into other businesses. We’re not gonna get into a general-entertainment streaming service. We’re not gonna be operating other businesses that are outside of the strategy that we have defined — no matter what you read in the press.”
You know where there is “more IP, more product, more library to sell”? Right, Paramount. But Paramount Global also has a “general-entertainment streaming service,” Paramount+, which Vinciquerra is not looking to “get into.”
Vinciquerra’s comments sound like the latest (potential) death sentence for the core Paramount streaming service, but they don’t mean he hates the streaming business in its entirety (although no one wanted to hang on to Sony’s Crackle service).
“Crunchyroll is going to be our primary driver of growth at SPE over the next few years,” Vinciquerra said during the Q&A.
Just imagine the AI potential in anime…
