Fable Studio, an Amazon-backed AI company, plans to reconstruct 43 minutes of Orson Welles' legendary film 'The Magnificent Ambersons', which was heavily edited by RKO. The initiative coincides with the launch of their AI service, Showrunner, aimed at allowing users to create animated TV series. Despite lacking rights to the film, the project highlights AI's potential positive impact on storytelling.
AI to Recreate Lost Masterpiece of Orson Welles
AI to Recreate Lost Masterpiece
An AI company plans to recreate the lost parts of Orson Welles' 83-year-old legendary film "The Magnificent Ambersons".
The Amazon-backed AI company, Fable Studio, aims to reconstruct 43 minutes of the truncated feature film, as reported by several media outlets.
The news coincides with the company's launch of the AI service Showrunner, which allows users to "create" their own animated TV series.
"We are starting with Orson Welles because he is the greatest storyteller of the past 200 years. Many are rightly skeptical of AI's impact on film, but we hope this gives people a sense of the positive contribution AI can make to the art of storytelling," said the company's CEO Edward Saatchi to Indiewire.
However, they do not have the rights to the film, and there are no plans to show the reconstruction in commercial contexts.
"The Magnificent Ambersons," featuring Dolores Costello and Tim Holt, was filmed in 1941 and was to be Welles' next masterpiece after "Citizen Kane." However, the studio RKO cut large parts of the film and shot a new ending before its premiere the following year. The studio then destroyed the cut material, and Welles' version is considered completely lost.