Lionsgate’s experiment to fuse its film library with cutting‑edge generative AI is turning into a test of both technology and Hollywood’s shifting business model.

In September 2024, the studio behind The Hunger Games and John Wick announced a deal with AI startup Runway to build a customized video generation model trained on Lionsgate’s vast catalog of films and TV shows.¹ Lionsgate framed the partnership as a way to help “filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work” and create “capital-efficient content creation opportunities,” casting AI as a tool to enhance pre‑ and post‑production rather than replace humans.¹

Runway, already known for powerful video models widely believed to be trained on internet-scale data, pitched the collaboration as giving storytellers “new ways of bringing their stories to life.”¹ Specifics remained murky, including how, or whether, creatives whose work was used to train the model would be compensated — a sensitive issue after SAG‑AFTRA’s recent strikes over AI replicas of performers and data rights.¹

By late 2025, however, the technical reality lagged behind the hype. Reporting indicated the joint model struggled to produce usable footage, with one account noting that the “Lionsgate catalog isn’t enough to create those kinds of large-scale projects,” undermining hopes for AI-assisted feature films.² The partnership that once symbolized a bold AI future was now defined by engineering constraints and dataset limits.

In response, Lionsgate has reportedly pivoted its strategy. Instead of aiming first for AI-supported movies, the studio is channeling more effort into “short episodic series using existing Lionsgate IP,” effectively downsizing its ambitions to AI-generated shorts built from familiar franchises.³ The shift suggests a more incremental path: use AI to cheaply experiment with smaller, branded content while the underlying technology — and the industry’s labor and licensing rules — continue to catch up.