Ben Affleck starts AI company, Netflix buys it: What does this mean for movies?
Netflix has acquired Interpositive, an AI startup founded by Ben Affleck that automates film post-production tasks. The move is intended to improve filmmaking efficiency while preserving human creativity and artistic control.
If you’ve ever watched a movie and wondered how the filmmakers spent hours fixing a poorly lit scene, color grading, adding visual effects, or maintaining consistency across hundreds and thousands of shots – there’s now an AI tool built specifically for that. And Netflix recently acquired the company behind it.
The company is called Interpositive, and it was founded in 2022 by Ben Affleck – the actor and director of movies like Yes, gone Baby Gone And Air. Netflix didn’t just buy the technology. The entire Interpositive team, including engineers, researchers, and creative professionals, is moving to Netflix. Affleck himself will serve as a senior advisor.
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So what does the interpositive actually do?
Here’s the simplest way to understand it. When a film is being made, directors shoot hundreds of hours of footage. During post-production on a film, editors and visual effects artists study all that footage to edit the film, fixing problems and narrative patterns. A shot can be very deep. The lighting of one scene may not match the next. A visual effect may need to be added seamlessly.
Interpositive’s AI is designed to help with exactly these types of tasks – color correction, re-exposing scenes, adding visual effects, and making sure everything looks the same throughout the film. Think of it as a highly intelligent assistant that understands the language of filmmaking and helps artists do their work faster and more accurately.
And the entire process is automated. This means you don’t need manpower to work on each frame individually to maintain consistency.
How is it different from ChatGPT or other AI tools?
Most of the AI tools you’ve heard about – ChatGPT, MidJourney, DALL-E – work by generating a video or photo from scratch based on a text prompt. You type “sunset over the mountains” and the AI creates an image. And as you explain more, it will share options according to your prompts
Interpositive works in a completely different way. It does not generate content from scratch. Instead, it is trained on actual production footage from actual film sets and is used to assist existing content. Affleck was quoted by DiversitySaying, “It’s not about text-prompting or generating something from scratch.” It works with what filmmakers already have, helping to enhance and improve it – not replace it.
Will it replace filmmakers and actors?
The short answer is no, and that’s the whole point. Affleck started InterPositive because he noticed that early AI tools failed to understand what makes a great movie. He wanted to create something that would preserve human creativity rather than endanger it.
Netflix chief content officer Bella Bajaria was equally candid, saying the company believes new tools should expand creative freedom, not replace the work of writers, directors, actors and crew.
The tools will be made available to Netflix’s creative partners – directors, showrunners and production teams – but will not be sold commercially to anyone else.
At the heart of Interpositive’s design is the idea that the filmmaker always has the final say. AI is constructed by Affleck as having “restrictions to protect creative intent” – meaning that tools are intentionally designed to prevent creative decision making. Whatever suggestion the AI makes, whatever improvement it proposes, remains subject to the artist’s approval.
Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s chief product and technology officer, emphasized this, saying that the technology is “purpose-built for filmmakers and showrunners to work with tools that naturally support their creative visions.” In other words, AI does not lead. It is like this.
Why does it matter?
This step gives some important signals. One of Hollywood’s most recognizable filmmakers didn’t fight AI — he tried to shape it responsibly. And one of the world’s largest streaming platforms supports that approach. For audiences, this could mean movies that look better, are more skillfully made, and still feel completely human at their core.