SKYNET AND HAL SMILE: Warner Bros. Signs Deal for AI-Driven Film Management System.

Resistance is futile. Warner Bros. has become the latest studio to publicly embrace artificial intelligence.

The movie division, headed up by chairman Toby Emmerich, has signed a deal with Cinelytic to use the latter’s AI-driven project management system that was launched last year.

Under the new deal, Warners will leverage the system’s comprehensive data and predictive analytics to guide decision-making at the greenlight stage. The integrated online platform can assess the value of a star in any territory and how much a film is expected to make in theaters and on other ancillary streams.

Founded four years ago by Tobias Queisser, Cinelytic has been building and beta testing the platform for three years. In 2018, the company raised $2.25 million from T&B Media Global and signed deals with Ingenious Media (Wind River) and Productivity Media (The Little Hours). STX, which endured a number of flops in 2019, including Playmobil and Uglydolls, became a Cinelytic client in September.

While the platform won’t necessarily predict what will be the next $1 billion surprise, like Warners’ hit Joker, it will reduce the amount of time executives spend on low-value, repetitive tasks and instead give them better dollar-figure parameters for packaging, marketing and distribution decisions, including release dates.

There are an increasing number of movies being made starring synthetic thespians, so it was only a matter of time before film executives were similarly replaced by digital technology. And based on the last 15 years or so of Hollywood product, it’s not like the computers can do any worse than their human predecessors counterparts…