Orson Welles's estate slams AI remake of 'The Magnificent Ambersons'
Orson Welles's estate isn't happy with Amazon and AI startup Showrunner's plan to use artificial intelligence to recreate 43 minutes of missing scenes from his classic 1942 film, The Magnificent Ambersons.
They've called the project "disappointing" and say it's just trying to generate publicity on the back of Welles's creative genius.
Estate worries the project will feel 'mechanical'
The original scenes were cut and destroyed by the studio decades ago, so they're gone for good.
The estate worries that using AI to bring them back would feel "mechanical" and lack the creative spark that made Welles famous.
This is what the estate exactly said
David Reeder, who manages Welles's legacy, says they're open to some uses of AI—like licensed voice models—but believe "AI still cannot replace the creative instincts resident in the human mind."
For them, scripts and notes just aren't enough to capture what made Welles unique.