Artificial Intelligence could one day determine which films get made - Tech News The Star Online

LOS ANGELES: According to the founder of artificial intelligence outfit ScriptBook, Sony Pictures could have saved a fortune from 2015 to 2017 by using the company's algorithms instead of human beings to reject or greenlight movies. In a presentation at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, ScriptBook founder Nadira Azermai said that by analysing screenplays, ScriptBook retroactively identified as box-office failures 22 out of the 32 Sony movies that lost money in that period, during which Sony released a total of 62 movies. "If Sony had used our system they could have eliminated 22 movies that failed financially," said Azermai. Welcome to the brave new world of AI and machine learning as it applies to Hollywood. Many see in ScriptBook and similar AI systems the potential to destroy a major part of the film production and distribution ecosystem, displacing script readers and saving much of the money studios spend on test screenings, focus groups and market research. At its most basic, ScriptBook, founded in 2015 and based in Antwerp, Belgium, has created a tool that analyses the text of screenplays to produce financial forecasting, or as Azermai grandly puts it, "Our mission is to revolutionise the business of storytelling by using AI to help producers, distributors, sales agents and financiers assess their risk."