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Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n
Just when you thought the holiday season couldn\u2019t arrive any earlier this year, here comes an AI-generated Christmas movie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Titled \u201cMerry the Christmas Witch,\u201d it\u2019s based on a children\u2019s book and will inspire awe in its young audience about the magic of the holidays \u2014 through ghoulish and uncanny AI imagery (you can see footage here<\/a>). The film \u2014 which currently has no distributor \u2014 cost $1.5 million to make, but its director brags that using AI actually saved him tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would never have gotten a movie like \u2018Merry\u2019 made if we didn\u2019t take that chance,\u201d Tom Walsh, CEO of the indeopendent production company TW3 Entertainment, and who directed and co-wrote the film, told Variety<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to Walsh, when he was inspired to make a movie out of author Bobbi Hess\u2019s original book, he realized that it would cost $80 million to make. An \u201cunknown property\u201d like this one would be a hard sell to studios, he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were kind of stuck,\u201d Walsh told Varietey. \u201cThe doors are not very open to new kind[s] of ideas and new kind[s] of stories and everything, and that makes it a little tough for independent filmmakers, so that\u2019s where AI came in.\u201d<\/p>\n You can sympathize with his position. A movie industry obsessed with intellectual property and averse to risk-taking has made it harder than ever for independent creatives to fund their projects and reach an audience.<\/p>\n