Netflix paid $587M for Ben Affleck’s AI filmmaking startup

In a new regulatory filing, Netflix revealed that it paid $587 million in cash for InterPositive, a startup co-founded by actor and director Ben Affleck.

The streaming company announced the acquisition in March, with a statement from Affleck saying he wanted to “protect the power of human creativity.” According to Affleck, InterPublic’s AI tools help filmmakers improve their footage in post-production, particularly when it comes to making up for “real-world production challenges such as missing shots, background replacements or incorrect lighting.”

At the time, Netflix announced that the entire InterPositive team would be joining the company, with Affleck joining as a senior advisor, but it didn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal. A subsequent report in Bloomberg suggested that the deal could be worth up to $600 million.

In its most recent earnings report, Netflix said that around 300 of its titles have already used generative AI.