Warner Bros reportedly signs deal with AI company Cinelytic to guide executives in decision-making about films

Warner Bros has reportedly partnered with AI company Cinelytic to help guide company executives decide which film to green light using the system’s “comprehensive data and predictive analytics.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cinelytic can assess the value of an actor in any territory and even predict how much revenue a film will generate in traditional theatres and other platforms. [caption id=“attachment_7884261” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Warner Bros logo. Image from Twitter[/caption] THR adds that the system cannot tell whether a film will be able to make a significant dent at the box office, like the Joaquin Phoenix-starrer _Joker_ , but it will reduce the amount of time spent by Warner Bros’ executives on “low-value, repetitive tasks”. The assistance of AI is expected to give “better dollar-figure parameters for packaging, marketing and distribution decisions, including release dates.” Despite Joker raking in $1 billion at the global box office, the studio has witnessed several flops like mob drama The Kitchen and sci-fi drama  Godzilla: King of the Monsters , which can be averted with the help of this AI technology. The system can also be useful during festival season where studios, within a few hours time, usually bid millions to acquire a film. Cinelytic has previously been used for indie films like Wind River (2017) starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, and The Little Hours (2017) with  Alison Brie and Dave Franco. “The system can calculate in seconds what used to take days to assess by a human when it comes to general film package evaluation or a star’s worth,” Tobias Queisser, founder of Cinelytic told THR. “Artificial intelligence sounds scary. But right now, an AI cannot make any creative decisions. What it is good at is crunching numbers and breaking down huge data sets and showing patterns that would not be visible to humans. But for creative decision-making, you still need experience and gut instinct.” Warner Bros is yet to confirm this development.