{"id":565128,"date":"2026-03-27T21:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565128\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T21:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:03:09","slug":"is-ai-restoring-orson-welles-or-the-wizard-of-oz-a-good-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565128\/","title":{"rendered":"Is AI-Restoring Orson Welles or the Wizard of Oz a Good Idea?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn 1986,\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0ran\u00a0a screed<\/a>\u00a0against a film-restoration trend gaining steam.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an essay published in the thick of the \u201ccolorization\u201d craze of the 1980s, the late critic Vincent Canby argued that the process of altering black-and-white movies with modern visual flourishes \u201cdesecrated\u201d those classics, writing that \u201cnobody connected with the original[s]\u2026had anything to do with this artistic revisionism\u201d and \u201cof the half-dozen [colorized] films I\u2019ve seen to date, all but one were virtually unwatchable.\u201d The problems in Canby\u2019s view were both ethical and aesthetic, ultimately betraying that key quality of any artwork \u2014 that it belongs to the time in which it was made.<\/p>\n

\n\tForty years later, Canby\u2019s impassioned argument fits rather neatly into a raging debate around a new technological movement: The use of generative artificial intelligence to expand upon, alter or simply \u201ccomplete\u201d movies that were made decades before. The Sphere<\/a> in Las Vegas thrust the practice into the mainstream with its AI<\/a>-ified take on 1939\u2019s\u00a0The Wizard of Oz<\/a>, which employed various techniques to fill the space\u2019s 160,000-square-foot interior display plane. Echoing that 40-year-old Canby editorial, today\u2019s\u00a0Times\u2019 critic Alissa Wilkinson\u00a0wrote<\/a>, \u201cIt suggests that in the future, every artist\u2019s choices could be reversed, altered or ripped to shreds, then presented by their corporate owners as if they\u2019re essentially the original, just zhuzhed up a bit for a new century.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColorization died a relatively quick death, at least as a formally accepted practice; its short\u00a0lifespan serves as a reminder that backlash to innovations can\u00a0be\u00a0both warranted and effective. AI, though, might yield a more complex story.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn moving-image history, these debates about technological change and its impact on creativity or labor or our understanding of the past have resurfaced at various times,\u201d says Dr. Charles Acland, a distinguished professor of cultural theory and film studies at Concordia University. \u201cBut we also live in an economy where there is such extraordinary hype around what gets called AI \u2026 that it puts a different kind of pressure on these discussions and debates. Colorization is a good comparison, but it didn\u2019t have the same sweeping social and economic impact of something like generative AI\u00a0\u2014 so there\u2019s more at stake in how we sort through what we\u2019re going to accept and valorize.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSince its August 2025 opening, The Sphere\u2019s\u00a0Oz\u00a0has sold more than 2.2 million tickets, a staggering number for what remains, even for all its enhancements, a live and edited presentation of a widely available film first released nearly 90 years ago. If critics and cinephiles were split on, even largely repelled by, The Sphere\u2019s digital addition of new\u00a0Oz\u00a0performances and visuals, the general public embraced an immersive, eventized version of the classic movie.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd with that, more is on the way. The AI-restoration wave may only be starting to crest.<\/p>\n

\n\tEdward Saatchi, founder of Fable Studios, is currently spearheading <\/a>an elaborate project on\u00a0The Magnificent Ambersons. The only existing version of the 1942 Orson Welles<\/a> family drama was famously cut down and reshot by RKO against the director\u2019s wishes, with more than an hour of unseen footage eventually destroyed. Welles himself spoke decades later of his desire to reshoot the original ending \u2014 RKO\u2019s version was decidedly sunnier \u2014 and revive the dismantled final act. Admirers have since brainstormed doing that on his behalf. Welles\u2019\u00a0Ambersons\u00a0cut is considered among the great lost films, though its existing form is still itself revered.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trail of evidence that Welles left behind has kept the notion of restoration alive. From the set photos and the \u201ccutting continuity,\u201d a document describing how each shot leads into the next, to the director\u2019s own comments over the years, one could at least imagine the\u00a0Ambersons\u00a0that never saw the light of day. With this evidence, filmmaker Brian Rose spent years meticulously creating those lost scenes through animation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe thought was always in the back of my mind that, \u2018Yeah, this will be my thing, and then somebody else will come along and do something else, or maybe technology<\/a> \u2014 AI \u2014 could do a seamless re-creation,\u2019\u201d Rose says. \u201cThe only thing that I completely missed the ball on was how quickly the technology would come around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSaatchi, who\u2019s been obsessed with\u00a0Ambersons\u00a0since childhood and now runs a gen AI company, reached out to Rose to combine forces \u2014 because, indeed, the technology came around. So far, they have been operating without the participation of Warner Bros., owner of the property and much of RKO\u2019s back catalogue, and\u00a0are in the thick of a process that will take years. One \u201cshoot\u201d with real actors has already been completed, with the missing shots re-created; there will be two additional filming sessions with performers, drawing from lessons of the previous shoots, and whose work will be superimposed onto the original actors\u2019 likeness in the film with the help of AI. The hope is for the final filming portion to be completed within a year or so.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSome people are going to be like, \u2018Oh no, this is terrible,\u2019 and some people are going to be like, \u2018OK, so wait, I\u2019m going to be defending the butchering of this person\u2019s vision and not even think about how to actually show what he was intending?\u2019\u201d Saatchi tells\u00a0THR. \u201cIf I was to guess, the majority of the people that I\u2019ve talked to across many different areas within Hollywood are of the view that \u2026 if it\u2019s genuinely seamless and you can completely justify what you\u2019ve done in terms of the decisions, maybe it is a service to cinema to see what the greatest filmmaker of all time at the height of his powers made.\u201d (You can see one of the new shots above.)<\/p>\n

\n\tSaatchi adds, \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of outreach from established directors who are like, \u2018This is pretty cool, this is a great idea\u2019\u201d \u2014 though at this stage, he says he cannot name any of them. (He has\u00a0not\u00a0heard from Martin Scorsese, at least, who once expressed interest in reconstructing\u00a0Ambersons, according to film historian Robert Harris.) Saatchi hopes to attract\u00a0further\u00a0filmmaker\u00a0interest in joining the project as he progresses, granting it more legitimacy within the cinephile community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Welles estate was not approached about this project before it was announced last year, a communication lapse that Saatchi regrets. Orson\u2019s daughter Beatrice Welles runs the estate and says now in a statement to\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter, \u201cLike most people I\u2019m quite terrified of AI and in many ways wish it had never been invented.\u201d She had no further comment, pointing back to what she told\u00a0The New Yorker\u00a0last month: \u201cAs far as\u00a0Ambersons\u00a0is concerned, I\u2019m a purist and wish that originally it had never been tampered with. Nobody and nothing can think like my father. In regards to what Fable Studios is doing, while I am skeptical I know they are going into this project with enormous respect towards my father and this beautiful movie and only for that I am grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSaatchi says that he has spoken with the estate recently, and \u201cthey\u2019ve been really open-minded about it. I think, for them, it\u2019s about the intention and how it works structurally.\u201d He believes his\u00a0Ambersons\u00a0\u201cis going to be a disaster if it\u2019s distracting, and so it\u2019ll be very obvious if we\u2019ve succeeded.\u201d He describes the project as an academic exercise as opposed to a commercial one like The Sphere\u2019s\u00a0Oz. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a terrible turning point in cinematic history that we\u2019re trying to undo to some extent,\u201d Saatchi says of his effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIf the pair pull it off, the implications could be massive, revealing AI\u2019s potential to convincingly resurrect and reinvent our cinematic history\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a potential that before the tech had remained firmly theoretical. That, Rose believes, would bring great benefit. \u201cWhen I think about the first milestone use of AI in this medium, it could be really without redeeming value \u2014 propaganda to foment disunity and confusion, something that exploits a person\u2019s likeness, something pornographic,\u201d Rose says. \u201cEdward and I are trying to use AI to give something back. That\u2019s also a motivating factor: This could be a really beautiful, redeeming way to employ this technology, which is still being worked out and can be scary and leave a lot of people with uncertainty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tFor all the backlash AI has generated in Hollywood, those practicing restorations are holding firm. Representatives for The Sphere were not available to speak for this story, but a source familiar with its\u00a0Oz\u00a0says that \u201cusing AI was the only way to maintain the integrity of the original film.\u201d The endeavor began with solving the problem of altering a movie shot for a 4:3 screen to fit The Sphere\u2019s unique \u2014 and enormous \u2014 dimensions, and AI models were trained on that original source material. Critics maintain that director Victor Fleming and the original film\u2019s other late artists had no say in their work essentially feeding a machine for the generation of new performances and images. The source familiar with The Sphere says that \u201crespecting the original was a priority.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSome film veterans are less convinced.\u00a0Daniel Roher, the Oscar-winning filmmaker who directed the new AI survey film\u00a0The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, says he has problems with restorations not made with a late filmmaker\u2019s consent, like an\u00a0Oz\u00a0or an\u00a0Ambersons.\u00a0\u201cTo be like, \u2018I know that the artist doesn\u2019t have any agency over this, but I\u2019m just going to do it, I want to do it,\u2019 is just a dystopic, selfish, postmodern dumpster fire\u00a0of a use case for the technology, in my opinion,\u201d he says. \u201cDo we have to be fucking with everything that was made in the past? Can we just let things exist? \u2026 It is kind of inconceivable that you\u2019d go to the Sistine Chapel and they\u2019d be like, \u2018Hey, yeah, we decided we wanted to change some elements to the ceiling \u2014 we zhuzhed it up a little bit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAcland adds that the RKO cut, flawed as it might be, actually contributes to our appreciation of Welles\u2019 artistry. \u201cThe fact that the studio back in 1942 insisted on re-edits and a happy ending and taking the film away from Orson \u2014 well, that\u2019s part of Orson Welles\u2019 story, and makes the film interesting to watch for all of its flawed components.\u201d he says. \u201cThe idea we\u2019re going to go back and fix that is a historical absurdity. \u2026 What you\u2019re going to get is a shell of that technological component on top of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSaatchi, at least, welcomes pushback \u2014 and at times doesn\u2019t even refute it. \u201cEven this, which I feel is clearly done with the best of intentions, has things that are kind of ethically indefensible,\u201d he says, pointing to his project\u2019s generation of new performances with deceased actors\u2019 likeness without their consent. \u201cThere is no argument for why that\u2019s defensible \u2014 other than that\u2019s the only way to do it.\u201d He believes that anyone taking up the mantle of AI-driven restoration should acknowledge at the outset that \u201cThis is not a wholly good thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis raises an obvious question: Why do it at all?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor better or worse, The Sphere\u2019s\u00a0Oz\u00a0has introduced a new generation \u2014 indeed, a whole new demographic \u2014 to golden age cinema as few in the modern era have been able to. The huge commercial potential is another obvious matter. The case for\u00a0Ambersons, meanwhile, is very specific to Saatchi and Rose, who both harbor\u00a0a lifelong obsession with completing this work. The situation is also unique in that, over Rose\u2019s many years of compiling and constructing, they have an exact blueprint to follow. The goal is precision in capturing Welles\u2019 vision, not making stuff up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRose sees many other opportunities in this vein: \u201cThe only limit is the will and obviously the resources necessary to dedicate to a project \u2026 this may put me in the minority, but I\u2019m someone who doesn\u2019t feel so protective of a certain film like, \u2018Oh, how dare you, you can\u2019t do this.\u2019\u201d But like many noted filmmakers currently speaking out against AI, Roher argues the opposite: \u201cWhat is art? To me, art is a human expression of creative activity that expresses some truth about being human that says, \u2018I was here, I existed, this was my experience, this is how I felt.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In his 1986\u00a0New York Times\u00a0essay, Canby noted that a colorized, or \u201ctinted,\u201d version of the 1937 film\u00a0Topper\u00a0had made $1 million, mostly in TV syndication dollars, by publication time. \u201cIf income like that can be earned by even a nonclassic screwball comedy,\u201d he wrote, \u201cwe may soon be seeing a young Charles Foster Kane with orange hair.\u201d For today\u2019s Welles purists, that would be the least of their concerns.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appears in\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s\u00a0upcoming AI Issue, out in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1986,\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0ran\u00a0a screed\u00a0against a film-restoration trend gaining steam.\u00a0 In an essay published in the thick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[62,217911,49,48,217912,75,217913,67682,61,199792,46380],"class_list":{"0":"post-565128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-digital-issue","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-classic-films","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-film-restoration","15":"tag-orson-welles","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-the-sphere","18":"tag-the-wizard-of-oz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}