AMC Networks Inks Deal With AI Company Runway (Exclusive)

AMC Networks is the latest entertainment entity — and the first cable player — to formally make a deal with emerging Hollywood AI player Runway, THR has learned.

AMC will use the New York firm’s tech both to generate marketing images and help pre-visualize shows that have yet to be produced.

“It’s kind of a natural transition for every entertainment and media company; they need to think through what AI means for them,” Runway co-founder Cristóbal Valenzuela told THR when asked about the AMC partnership. “This is the most important tech of their lifetime — it’s a make-or-break moment.”

With AMC and BBC America in its portfolio along with streaming services Shudder, Acorn TV and AMC+, AMC Networks has a notable range of platforms, in addition of course to bringing to the world Peak TV mainstays like Mad Men, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad to the world.

But with cord-cutting long a fact of life and even far larger streamers struggling for mindshare, the company has been hit hard. In its most recent earnings report, profits at AMC Networks nearly halved to $63 million, and the company is believed to be looking for ways to produce content less expensively without suffering a drop in quality.

Still, AMC’s streaming services boasts more than ten million subscribers, suggesting their content — that includes current critical hit Dark Winds, Walking Dead franchise extensions and the shows of the Anne Rice Immortal Universe — could be effectively monetized if costs are kept under control.

The AI production images could help showrunners figure out what would or wouldn’t work on the air without the high cost of shooting the material or designing it from scratch, a kind of low-cost trial-and-error system.

The marketing images, which unlike the first use case would be viewed directly by consumers, would allow a network to trot out a range of promotional material without the need to spend added time and money trying to capture immges with a physical shoot — though how that would be received by both audiences and the industry is an open question. The images and videos are not intended to be used in shows at this point.

“As we explore the transformative potential of AI across our business, we see powerful opportunities to enhance both how we market and how we create,” Stephanie Mitchko, AMC Networks’ executive vice president of global media operations and technology, said in a statement provided to THR about the deal with Runway, which is not exclusive. “Our objective is always to use every tool at our disposal to help our creative partners fully realize the stories they want to tell.”

Company executives declined to comment further for this story.

Many entertainment company bosses have had their heads turned by the powerful AI models such as Runway’s recently released Gen-4, seeing in it an ability to generate video at a high and often indistinguishable quality compared to real-life shoots and scouring for ways to use it. Lionsgate and Harmony Korine’s EDGELRD are among the firms that have made deals with Runway, while James Cameron has partnered with Meta on a host of tech-forward initiatives that could include AI and so-called mixed-reality, which combines real and virtual worlds.

A slew of other studios are tinkering with models from Runway, OpenAI, Stability AI, Luma Dream Machine and others behind the scenes, but given the early nature of the tech and the sensitivity of the issue with Hollywood guilds, they are not openly touting it. Runway, however, seems to be amassing partners willing to put their name in a headline, even if they remain mainly mid-sized or outlying firms.

In a bid to mainstream its tools and the synthetic-media category, Runway on Thursday will hold an “AI Film Festival” at New York’s Lincoln Center, featuring submissions of shorts made with AI. A Los Angeles event with be held at the Broad Stage Theater a week later.