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Sunny Hostin partnered with AI startup Fountain 0 to adapt her novels into movies and TV productions
She said AI helps bypass Hollywood gatekeeping, especially for Black and Brown creative content
Hostin said she believes AI allows her to connect with audiences
Sunny Hostin is defending her decision to license her books to be adapted into movies via AI.
The View co-host, 57, licensed her name and likeness to the AI startup Fountain 0, Variety reported in late August.
In a statement shared by the outlet at the time, Hostin said she believed “top-quality AI productions cannot only enable writers and directors to have their imaginations unleashed and no longer be tethered to budgetary constraints” but also “pioneer a new art form which can open up new dimensions for how public personalities can engage with audiences.”
Hostin shared similar sentiments while discussing AI during the Sept. 11 episode of The View.
“I recently partnered with a company called Fountain 0 who had an AI movie release at the Tribeca Film Festival and it’s the first time that was done,” she said. “And one of the reasons I partnered with this company is because I’ve written a trilogy and for six years I’ve tried to get my films or my stories made into series and films.”
“And the gatekeeping in Hollywood around Black and Brown creative content is insane,” she continued. “I cannot get New York Times best-selling books onto the screen to tell diverse stories to diverse communities.”
The talk show personality has written Summer on the Bluffs, Summer on Sag Harbor, and Summer on Highland Beach. She has also penned the memoir, I Am These Truths.
After Joy Behar asked what that had to do with AI, Hostin answered that AI “cuts out the gatekeeping.”
Hostin explained that she may appear in the film because she’s licensed her image, causing Behar to ask if she’s a “robot.”
“In all seriousness, it’s a way to go then to a streamer and say, ‘Here’s the product. Will you license it? Will you show it?’ It’s a way, I think, to get Black and Brown stories told,” the host said.
Sunny Hostin attends the “Children of Blood and Bone” Exclusive Footage and Conversation during the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival on August 07, 2026, in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts
Credit: Arnold Turner/Getty
For Hostin, bringing her creative work to life is an irreplaceable benefit of AI.
“To be able to bring my novels to life in movie and TV form, and actually have my image inserted in the productions, so that audiences can relate to me through my stories beyond my role as an author, is incredibly exciting to me,” Hostin told Variety in August.
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“This entire generational innovation in filmmaking from Fountain 0 gives me confidence that AI can give me a way to both more fully develop and more fully immerse myself in [intellectual property] I have developed,” she added.
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