Hollywood-based film studios are increasingly using AI as part of the decision-making process when ... [ ] commissioning and producing new films. For anyone who's ever thought Hollywood's output is formulaic and tired, the movie industry may be about to get worse. Major studio Warner Bros. has signed a deal with Cinelytic, which has developed an AI-powered system that can predict the likelihood of a film's success based on such factors as actors, budget and brand. Predictably enough, Warner Bros. will be using Cinelytic's software as part of the research process it undergoes when deciding which movies to commission. While it obviously can't measure how good a film will be artistically, Warner Bros. will likely use it during early production phases to separate ideas likely to succeed from those that most likely aren't.

Several years ago, a trio of entrepreneurs, Peter Muzzonigro, Johnny Wong, and Bryan Baum -- the last of whom sold his first two companies (Blue Vision Labs and Represent.com) After spending the better part of months developing a solution -- Panoramic -- and quietly launching it in 2018, they embarked on an ambitious customer acquisition strategy, which netted them the business of brands including Sweetgreen, Sony Home Entertainment, TruConnect, MGM, Blumhouse Productions, and Cha Cha Matcha. Panoramic today emerged from stealth with $35 million in funding from TPG Growth's Affinity Group and others, which Muzzonigro said will be used to grow existing markets (chiefly entertainment, ecommerce, technology, quick-service restaurants, and digital media agencies), deepen brand and agency partnerships, and invest in AI-powered solutions designed for marketing analytics. "Marketers were expected to map and model their own data -- effectively needing to understand how to code to understand the value of their data," said Muzzonigro. "Panoramic solves that problem by providing marketers with a specially built platform that requires no coding and allows time-to-value to occur in days or weeks versus months." Panoramic's approach combines automation with the domain knowledge of in-house data scientists and analysts, enabling marketers to build customized and holistic dashboards for data analysis, benchmarking, and more.

The film world is full of intriguing what-ifs. Will Smith famously turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix. Nicolas Cage was cast as the lead in Tim Burton's Superman Lives, but he only had time to try on the costume before the film was canned. Actors and directors are forever glancing off projects that never get made or that get made by someone else, and fans are left wondering what might have been. For the people who make money from movies, that isn't good enough.

Data scientists at 20th Century Fox and Google Cloud have developed machine-learning software that can analyze movie trailers and predict how likely people are to see those movies in theaters. A recent preprint research paper breaks down how the program, named Merlin, can now recognize objects and patterns in a trailer to understand movie scenes. Merlin can scan trailers and spot objects like "man with beard," "gun," "car," and decide whether the movie is an action flick or a crime drama based on the context in which those objects appear. "A trailer with a long close-up shot of a character is more likely for a drama movie," the study's authors write, "whereas a trailer with quick but frequent shots is more likely for an action movie." Merlin can use its knowledge of common tropes in trailers to understand how sequences of actions in trailers play into our expectations for genre films.

Facebook now has 2 billion monthly users… and responsibility.

This article is part of CMO.com's December series about 2018 trends, predictions, and new opportunities. We're all aware of the immense impact that technology has had on the ways in which consumers interact with brands. Think about some early inventions--such as the telephone in 1876 and the television in 1926--which gave businesses an easy way to connect with consumers on a more intimate level, from the comfort of their homes. Fast-forward to the late 1970s, when people could purchase personal computers, and next, 1991, when the Internet (World Wide Web) became available to the world. Both brought with them dramatic changes.

Santa and his reindeer got nothing on Rey, Finn and Poe. Moviegoers may have been immersed in holiday parties and preparations in the days leading up to Christmas, but they still filled theaters for some Jedi Knight magic. As expected, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" held the top spot at the box office over the weekend. Director Rian Johnson's distinctive take on the sci-fi franchise has been equally lauded by critics and audiences alike. With its 92% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and A rating on CinemaScore, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is flying as high as Santa this Christmas.

Scientists at IBM Research have collaborated with 20th Century Fox to create the first-ever cognitive movie trailer for the movie Morgan. Utilizing experimental Watson APIs and machine learning techniques, the IBM Research system analyzed hundreds of horror/thriller movie trailers. After learning what keeps audiences on the edge of their seats, the AI system suggested the top 10 best candidate moments for a trailer from the movie Morgan, which an IBM filmmaker then edited and arranged together. A corporate troubleshooter (Kate Mara) is sent to a remote, top-secret location, where she is to investigate and evaluate a terrifying accident. She learns the event was triggered by a seemingly innocent "human," who presents a mystery of both infinite promise and incalculable danger.

IBM used its artificial intelligence platform Watson to create a movie trailer for the film Morgan, a tale of the fate of an artificially created human. The IBM team worked with 20th Century Fox, it said. John R. Smith, IBM Fellow, Manager, Multimedia and Vision, said in a blog: "How do you create a movie trailer about an artificially enhanced human? Fox wanted to explore using artificial intelligence (AI) to create a horror movie trailer that would keep audiences on the edge of their seats." It could have been generated using Artificial Intelligence.

Scientists at IBM Research have collaborated with 20th Century Fox to create the first-ever cognitive movie trailer for the movie Morgan. Utilizing experimental Watson APIs and machine learning techniques, the IBM Research system analyzed hundreds of horror/thriller movie trailers. After learning what keeps audiences on the edge of their seats, the AI system suggested the top 10 best candidate moments for a trailer from the movie Morgan, which an IBM filmmaker then edited and arranged together. A corporate troubleshooter (Kate Mara) is sent to a remote, top-secret location, where she is to investigate and evaluate a terrifying accident. She learns the event was triggered by a seemingly innocent "human," who presents a mystery of both infinite promise and incalculable danger.