A decade and a half after she got her big break in Hollywood, Margot Robbie is now starring in the first official AI reboot in television history. It’s important to stress that Robbie herself isn’t actually involved in the production of this reboot, but it will be built around the performance she gave in her debut screen role.
Long before she came to the world’s attention appearing as a romantic lead opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie got her start on a soap opera in her home country. A native of the Gold Coast in Australia, she spent three years working her way to prominence on Australian television, until she was cast in the American period drama Pan Am in 2011.
Robbie’s very first role was in her home country’s biggest soap Neighbours, which ran for 40 years and almost 10,000 episodes, and is currently accessible in the United States by the free video-on-demand service Amazon Freevee. She played Donna Freedman, a teenage superfan of a musician character in the show, who later became a part of the adolescent community within its suburban Melbourne setting.
While this role ultimately doesn’t hold a candle to Robbie’s various underrated movie and TV performances since her tenure in Neighbours ended, it’s still impressively complex for a teen soap opera character, featuring several emotionally-charged romantic storylines. The show’s production company Fremantle obviously feel there’s enough material there to make a spinoff microdrama exclusively about Donna, and have enlisted the help of AI to do so.
AI Is Rebooting Margot Robbie’s Debut Screen Role As A Microdrama
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Margot Robbie played Donna Freeman for 354 episodes of Neighbours between 2008 and 2011, before departing the series at the age of just 21. She returned for a brief cameo appearance in one 2022 episode, but she’s otherwise left the Australian soap opera far behind her.
It’s probably as much of a surprise for Robbie as anyone else, then, to hear that the show’s production company are now partnering with AI-assisted vertical TV specialists RoseBerry Media to turn her three-year stint on Ramsay Street into a new mobile-optimized microdrama. This new release will exclusively involve scenes and storylines featuring Robbie’s character Donna Freeman, re-edited and optimized for mobile viewing by RoseBerry’s AI tool RedSnapper.
In a statement announcing the news, the studio’s CEO Guy Hameiri described Neighbours as “exactly the kind of premium entertainment IP we believe can thrive in the vertical format.” (via Streaming Media) Alongside Hameiri, Fremantle’s Commercial and International CEO Jens Richter explained the AI editing process that will create the microdrama as follows:
“RedSnapper can scan decades of episodes to map character arcs, storylines and standout moments, helping editors quickly identify the strongest material. Its 12-step AI-assisted workflow allows the creative team to focus on shaping stories for mobile-first audiences rather than manual reformatting.”
“RedSnapper can scan decades of episodes to map character arcs, storylines and standout moments, helping editors quickly identify the strongest material. Its 12-step AI-assisted workflow allows the creative team to focus on shaping stories for mobile-first audiences rather than manual reformatting.”
It’s easy to see how a phone-friendly reimagining of Robbie’s role could bring millions of new eyes to Neighbours. The microdrama will also serve as the first live-action release by a major TV or movie studio which has primarily used AI to repackage – and effectively reboot – a preexisting series.
Margot Robbie is far from the only big-name Hollywood star to have appeared in Neighbours early in their acting career. There are probably other A-listers out there currently wondering when their part is due to be recycled into another microdrama generated by AI. Next it could be Russell Crowe, one of the Hemsworth brothers, or perhaps The Witcher season 4 cast member Mahesh Jadu.
Neighbours’ Cast And Crew Have Expressed Concern About AI’s Role In The Reboot
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Since Fremantle and RoseBerry have announced their new creation, various actors and crew members who were part of the Neighbours era that featured Margot Robbie have voiced their concerns about AI technology being used on a previous screen production in this way. For instance, Robbie’s co-star Zeke Kinski has told the BBC:
“If they’re creating a new micro-drama out of something that already exists, I feel there needs to be consent for using our image and voice as well as the writers.”
</blockquote>“If they’re creating a new micro-drama out of something that already exists, I feel there needs to be consent for using our image and voice as well as the writers.”
It’s understood that Robbie herself hasn’t consented to the use of her image or voice in the microdrama, because Fremantle owns the rights to the original footage. Meanwhile, former Neighbours sound recordist Bruce Findlay has described the process RoseBerry is undertaking as “like cutting up a Picasso and rebuilding it.”
This controversy comes just a year after the AI actor Tilly Norword was making headlines, by seemingly putting the jobs of paid-up human beings at risk. Now, it’s the work that real actors have already done that’s of concern.
Enjoying this article? Support our work with a small crypto donation.Margot Robbie is yet to comment publicly on the new AI reboot of her Neighbours role. She’ll almost certainly have something to say once the finished product is released out into the world.
Neighbours
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Ian Smith
Harold Bishop
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Stefan Dennis
Paul Robinson
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Tom Oliver
Lou Carpenter
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Jackie Woodburne
Susan Kennedy
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