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OpenAI is using its generative AI tools to create a full-length animated film.
The film, Critterz, is about forest creatures forced to move after a stranger disrupts their village, The Wall Street Journal reports. Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, borrows the characters from a short film of the same name he released in 2023. That film was funded by OpenAI and made using the company’s own image generation tool DALL-E.
The animated movie version of Critterz, though, is produced by London-based Vertigo Films and California-based Native Foreign. It is written by some writers who worked on the 2024 film Paddington in Peru.
Together, they are making the film on a $30 million budget, which is a lot less than the usual budget for animated films. Inside Out 2, for example, reportedly cost $200 million.
With the help of OpenAI’s AI tools, including GPT-5 and other image generation models, the makers also expect to wrap up the film quickly—nine months compared to the usual three-year cycle for animated films, the Journal notes.
However, not every element of the film will be generated using AI. Human artists will provide the sketches to be fed into the AI tools and the voiceover for characters. Roughly 30 people will work on the film.
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Nelson and the other makers are hoping to debut Critterz at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026. If successful, the film will prove AI tools are cost-effective, time-saving, and ready to deliver on the big screen, Nelson says, adding that it could also speed Hollywood’s adoption of AI.
Netflix recently used AI tools to generate the collapse of a building in its Argentinian show The Eternaut. Avatar director James Cameron also believes AI could help double the “speed to completion on a given shot” and enable filmmakers to focus on cooler things.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
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