OpenAI, the tech startup behind ChatGPT and other AI tools released in the past three years, has set its sights on Hollywood. The company wants to turn “Critterz,” a short, animated film OpenAI made with AI tools in previous years, into a full animated feature. According to The Wall Street Journal, the OpenAI project will have a budget of up to $30 million. It should be done in nine months as the company attempts to secure a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026.
The ambitious project aims to prove that OpenAI’s generative artificial intelligence tools can be used to make movies faster and cheaper by than traditional means. The WSJ explains that an animated movie typically takes about three years to complete. OpenAI wants to do it in less than a year. The announced budget is also lower than what a studio would pay to make an animated project without AI.
“Critterz” might also ruffle some feathers in Hollywood and at large. Film guilds and unions will undoubtedly be concerned about AI taking their jobs. However, the report notes that OpenAI will cast real actors for character voices. The company will hire artists to draw sketches that are then fed into AI models, including GPT-5 and other generative AI tools. The animated film’s script comes from some of the writers behind “Paddington in Peru.”
As for audiences, “Critterz” will offer a first test of whether moviegoers are willing to buy tickets for a movie made entirely with AI. The report notes that OpenAI aims for a global theatrical release next year, after the film’s debut at Cannes. However, no specific plans have been made, as the project lacks a distributor at the time of writing.
What is Critterz?
Fans of ChatGPT and OpenAI might remember the short “Critterz” animations the company made with its own tools, including Dall-E and Sora. The video above shows a side-by-side comparison between the two OpenAI products used to animate the film. It’s based on an idea from Chad Nelson, who is now a creative specialist at OpenAI working on the full movie. According to the Journal, about 30 people will work on the AI-animated movie, with London-based Vertigo Films and Native Foreign in Los Angeles producing.
“Critterz” tells the story of strange forest creatures whose village was disturbed by a stranger. In the short film above, that stranger is Dennis, Sir David Attenborough’s neighbor. He is filming a documentary about critters in the forest and he’s startled by the creatures talking back to him. They’re not too thrilled about being part of a documentary, but they propose the name “Critterz,” with a Z, for the sake of merchandizing.
That’s the premise of the short film, which is meant to highlight the image and video generation abilities of products like Dall-E and Sora, such as character and scene consistency. While the original short film was created with 2023’s Dall-E image generator and last year’s Sora video generation model, the “Critterz” animated movie will likely make use of newer AI innovations.
New OpenAI image and video generation tools?
OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4o image generation model went viral earlier this year, with millions of users signing up for the service to try it. But OpenAI didn’t have a similarly viral AI tool for generating videos. Sora, which OpenAI used for the “Critterz” short, might not be sufficient to animate a full movie. Also, OpenAI used mostly static scenes in the short film above, where the characters don’t move around much while they talk to Dennis. There’s no action, and the sets are mostly still images.
Comparatively, Google released more advanced AI video generation tools earlier this year, including Veo 3 and Flow. Filmmakers used Veo 3 for specific scenes in a film earlier this year. Veo 3 went viral online, and Google updated it with photo-to-video capabilities which are available in Gemini and Google Photos. Separately, Google upgraded its AI image generation tools, launching Nano-Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) a few weeks ago. That’s another tool that went viral during pre-release testing.
The creators behind “Critterz” might need similarly advanced AI tools from OpenAI, in addition to the latest ChatGPT model (GPT-5), to deliver an animated movie that moviegoers will want to watch.