Netflix just made its first acquisition in a while, and it comes with an Oscar winner attached.
The streaming giant has acquired InterPositive, the AI filmmaking tools company that Ben Affleck founded in 2022. While the financial terms remain undisclosed, Netflix’s move suggests a shift towards cost-efficiency, prioritizing AI-powered post-production solutions over costly human errors. The deal brings InterPositive’s lean team of less than 20 specialists under the Netflix umbrella, with Affleck taking a new role as a senior advisor.
Ben Affleck started the company because he was annoyed by how early AI production tools completely miss the point of filmmaking. The tools being thrown at Hollywood weren’t built to understand what cinematographers and editors actually care about — how light behaves across a scene, lens distortion, continuity, the unwritten logic that visually holds a film together.
InterPositive’s AI was trained mainly on these things. The practical application is tools that let production teams handle the unglamorous tasks like technical cleanup, lighting corrections, continuity patches, and environment adjustments without steamrolling the creative aspects that give a movie its identity. The system handles grunt work while leaving artistic choices to the user.
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Affleck commented: “In 2022, I spent a lot of time observing the early rise of AI in production. As a filmmaker, I could see how these models came up short. For artists to apply these tools towards telling the stories we dedicate our lives to, they need to be purpose-built to represent and protect all the qualities that make a great story: the nuances of filmmaking, the predictable — and unpredictable — challenges of production environments, the distortion of a lens or the way light shape-shifts across a scene.”
He further said, “We also need to preserve what makes storytelling human, which is judgment. The kind that takes decades to build, experience to hone, and that only people can have. I knew I had a responsibility to my peers and our industry, to protect the power of human creativity and the people behind it. In creating InterPositive, I sought to do just that.”
That’s a notably different pitch than what most AI companies are selling right now.
This deal comes at a crucial time, as studios and Hollywood’s major unions – actors, writers, and directors – are on the cusp of new contracts, with AI usage being a central point of contention. Netflix’s acquisition of the company aimed at protecting human creative control is either a true philosophical stance or very well-timed optics. Possibly both.
“We believe new tools should expand creative freedom, not constrain it or replace the work of writers, directors, actors, and crews,” Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria said.
Netflix Chief Product and Technology Officer Elizabeth Stone stated, “Our approach to AI has always been focused on meaningfully serving the needs of the creative community and our members. The InterPositive team is joining Netflix because of our shared belief that innovation should empower storytellers, not replace them.”
Netflix is not the only one to invite the robots onto the lot. Disney recently allowed OpenAI’s Sora video generator to use Star Wars and Marvel IP in its character creation. However, Netflix’s play is more grounded in the bottom line of production. By owning the firm that can fix “technical cleanup” and “lighting adjustments,” the company can theoretically slash the time and money spent in the editing bay.
Netflix made its first purchase since backing out of the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war. That withdrawal cost them a reported $2.8 billion breakup fee after Paramount Skydance swept in with a better offer. One deal would have completely changed the streaming industry, though this one barely registers as a blip on the radar.
