Hollywood beckons as Blackbird backs AI filmmaker via $4.7m raise

Wonder founders Justin Hackney and Xavier Collins have created an AI tool that aims to slash film production costs.

Lights, camera … Blackbird. Australia’s biggest venture capital fund is backing the burgeoning industry of artificial intelligence-powered filmmaking.

Hollywood is now embracing AI after an earlier row, which included the Writers Guild of America’s strike in 2023 over concerns about how the technology would disrupt screenwriting.

AI is becoming more of a tool in movie making, with software titan Adobe saying it had productive conversations with directors in the lead-up to releasing its first “commercial safe” AI video generator in February.

Now Blackbird has joined a pre-seed $US3m ($4.7m) raise for London-based AI creative studio Wonder. The start-up aims to slash film production costs.

Co-founder and chief executive Justin Hackney said $US243bn was spent globally on film and TV production in 2023, but outdated systems are a bottleneck for creativity, and industry pros frequently say 90 per cent of scripts never get made because of budget demands or gatekeeping.

“The cost of high-end TV and film production typically ranges from $US500,000 to $US1m per minute. Using AI, we can bring that down to $US10,000-$US20,000 per minute,” said Mr Hackney, a BAFTA-winning ­director.

“Traditional creative pipelines are too slow, expensive, and gate-kept for the pace of AI-native ­storytelling. Wonder is being built to enable faster production at scale, global collaboration, and fairer ownership for the next ­generation of creators and ­entertainment.”

Wonder works with brands, production companies and directors and matches them with a community of AI native creatives to develop teasers, ads, trailers, storyboard and recreations.

Co-founder Xavier Collins – who previously held senior roles at Deliveroo and co-founder film rights fund Lumiere Ventures – said: “We’re at an inflection point in history.­

“The power to craft and create visually striking stories is being rapidly democratised through technology. Storytelling should be about creativity, not overcoming financial and logistic barriers. We’re unearthing the next generation of talent and partnering with the traditional industry to unlock new avenues of creativity and empowering them to do more with less.”

Blackbird partner Samantha Wong said the founders believed AI offered unlimited creativity and also scalability.

“We love partnering from the very beginning and are excited by their human-centred approach to creative output, augmented by AI,” Ms Wong said.

Other investors in the rays included LocalGlobe, as well senior executives from ElevenLabs, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Campfire Studios, AtomFilms, Turo, and Activision Blizzard.

Blackbird partner Samantha Wong says Wonder’s founders believe AI offers unlimited creativity and scalability. Picture: Nikki Short