Actor/director/producer Tyler Perry has revealed he’s paused plans for an $800 million expansion of his studio in Atlanta after seeing developments in how artificial intelligence tools will impact TV and film production.
The expansion would have added 12 soundstages to the studio, but Perry told The Hollywood Reporter that after seeing OpenAI’s text-to-video tool Sora, he’s paused the project.
“Being told that it can do all of these things is one thing, but actually seeing the capabilities, it was mind-blowing,” said Perry.
“I was in the middle of, and have been planning for the last four years, about an $800 million expansion at the studio, which would’ve increased the backlot a tremendous size, we were adding 12 more soundstages,” he added. “All of that is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora and what I’m seeing. I had gotten word over the last year or so that this was coming, but I had no idea until I saw recently the demonstrations of what it’s able to do. It’s shocking to me.”
Perry said that the thing he found most shocking was that he would no longer need to travel to locations to shoot particular scenes. “If I wanted to write a scene on the moon, it’s text, and this AI can generate it like nothing,” he added. “If I wanted to have two people in the living room in the mountains, I don’t have to build a set in the mountains, I don’t have to put a set on my lot. I can sit in an office and do this with a computer, which is shocking to me.”
Perry added that he is “worried” about the impact Sora could have on the industry, particularly those working in sound and editing. He added that he expects the technology to “touch every corner of our industry”.
“I think that this is a time for galvanising one voice in motion to help save, protect the individuals of our industry,” said Perry.
Launched last week, OpenAI’s Sora uses generative AI to create videos from text. It is capable of generating entire videos all at once or extending generated videos to make them longer.
