Revealing that sci-fi series The Eternaut uses AI for its visual effects, Netflix boss Ted Sarandos has signalled that his company will continue to use the tech in its productions.
Hailing from Argentina, post-apocalyptic sci-fi series The Eternaut (El Eternauta) emerged on Netflix in April this year, and was generally well-received. In its creation of a devastated future covered in toxic snow, it also managed to make its $15m budget go a long way – that likely being a fraction of the cost that Lucasfilm spent on just one episode of Andor season 2.
According to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, generative AI was used to bring down the cost of The Eternaut’s visual effects. In a recent earnings call, the streaming boss said that the technology was used to create a sequence involving a collapsing Buenos Aires skyscraper.
“Using AI-powered tools, they were able to achieve an amazing result with remarkable speed and, in fact, that VFX sequence was completed 10 times faster than it could have been completed with traditional VFX tools and workflows,” he said, according to quotes published by The Guardian.
Without AI, Sarandos added, producing those effects “just wouldn’t have been feasible for a show of that budget.”
Both The Guardian and Business Insider have run headlines stating that The Eternaut is the first Netflix show to use AI in its production (something that Sarandos may have claimed himself). This isn’t strictly true.
The Netflix true crime documentary What Jennifer Did used gen-AI to create archival photographs of its subject, who was jailed for murder. Another documentary, Dirty Pop: The Boyband Scam, used a mixture of AI technologies to create footage of deceased music industry mogul – and fraudster – Lou Pearlman talking directly to the camera.
It could be said that The Eternauts is Netflix’s first piece of narrative fiction to use AI, but this ignores that cinematographer turned director Rodrigo Prieto used AI de-ageing on his 2024 film, Pedro Paramo.
Read more: AI | 16 films that have used artificial intelligence, and how
At any rate, Sarandos is firm in his belief that generative AI will continue to factor into Netflix’s output.
“We remain convinced that AI represents an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper,” he said. “This is real people doing real work with better tools. Our creators are already seeing the benefits in production through pre-visualisation and shot planning work, and certainly visual effects. I think these tools are helping creators expand the possibilities of storytelling on screen, and that is endlessly exciting.”
Netflix also has plans to use AI elsewhere in its business. AI-generated adverts could appear on our screens next year; the firm worked with OpenAI to rework its user interface, which will one day use speech recognition so its customers can search for things they want to watch with everyday language.
As Netflix product officer Eunice Kim said earlier this year, “We want you to be able to discover shows in movies using natural conversational phrases, like, ‘I want something funny and upbeat,’ or ‘I want something scary, but not too scary, and also maybe a little bit funny, but not like, ha ha funny.’ Believe it or not, that search phrase will actually yield results in the new experience.”
