"Amazon is planning to use artificial intelligence to recreate destroyed footage from Orson Welles' 1942 film "The Magnificent Ambersons" - but the late directors' estate is calling bull. In a statement to Variety, a spokesperson for David Reeder, whose Reeder Brand Management handles Welles' estate on behalf of the auteur's daughter Beatrice, said that the family hadn't been informed of the project, which is slated to generate with AI the final 43 minutes of the film."
"Edward Saatchi, the CEO of the Showrunner AI video app that Amazon recently invested in, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" last week that he and indie filmmaker Brian Rose want to resurrect that "lost" footage from Welles "ruined masterpiece" and bring the film "back to life." They plan to do so by shooting sequences with live actors and then face-swapping their likenesses with AI recreations of the movie's original cast."
"To call "Ambersons" a lost masterpiece isn't exactly an overstatement. Welles' film adaptation of a 1918 Pulitzer-winning novel of the same name by author Booth Tarkington takes on societal change around the early 20th century - but his raw cut was significantly modified by Golden Age studio RKO, removing nearly an hour of footage and changing the ending to a happier one."
Amazon-backed creators plan to generate the final 43 minutes of Orson Welles' 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons using AI-driven face-swapping and live-action sequences. The project involves the Showrunner AI app, led publicly by CEO Edward Saatchi, and indie filmmaker Brian Rose, with VFX direction from Tom Clive. The plan echoes earlier uses of digital resurrection in film, including Forrest Gump and posthumous CGI appearances in Rogue One and The Rise of Skywalker. Welles' original cut was heavily altered by studio RKO, which burned removed footage despite surviving director's notes outlining the original ending. The Welles estate reports it was not informed and objects to the plan.
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