James Lamont and Jon Foster of Paddington In Peru fame are to work on a feature-length, AI-generated family fantasy called Critterz.
Look, we hate to keep banging on about this generative AI thing, but the industryās decided itās here to say, seemingly, so weād best keep reporting about it.
The writers of Paddington In Peru, James Lamont and Jon Foster, are to work on the feature-length version of a film called Critterz. First emerging in 2023 and made by Chad Nelson, Critterz had the distinction of being one of the first animated shorts made using Dall.E ā OpenAIās software which generates images (both moving or otherwise) from pre-existing work on the internet.
The result is a kind of creepy mix of Monsters Inc and Where The Wild Things Are, with an assortment of creatures lurking, glassy-eyed, in a woodland setting. You can watch the whole thing below if youāre so inclined.
Variety now reports that the UKās Vertigo Films is behind the feature-length version, which as mentioned, Lamont and Foster will write.
“We’re very excited to be putting storytelling at the heart of this groundbreaking project,” the pair said in a statement. “The creative team behind Critterz really impressed us with their vision and desire to make a beautiful, compelling and funny family movie.”
The announcement comes mere days after a new company, Staircase Studios AI, announced that it plans to corner the low-budget filmmaking market by buying up unproduced Black List scripts and using cutting edge software to generate movies for less than $500,000. Its first effort, WWII resistance drama The Woman With The Red Hair, is due out this summer.
The five-minute preview unnerved us to such a degree that we instinctively threw our laptop in the nearest bin.
As for the realm of 3D animation, erstwhile DreamWorks Animation founder Jeffrey Katzenberg once predicted ā or perhaps warned ā that AI would be able to turn out family-friendly features full of anthropomorphic animals with fewer staff and in shorter time frames.
“We went from a pen to a paintbrush, a printing press, a still camera, a movie camera,” Katzenberg said in 2023. “These are things that expanded creativity and all sorts of storytelling in extraordinary ways. I think of AI as a creative tool – a new paintbrush or a new camera that has so much opportunity around it.”
Well, it now looks as though that prediction is about to come to pass. Will audiences embrace this eerie future largely untroubled by pesky artists, or will they gather up their belongings and run screaming to the hills?
Critterz is currently in development.
Weāll see you in the Peak District.
