According to the Wall Street Journal, two film studios are planning to use GPT-5 and other OpenAI models to create an animated movie, as reported late Sunday night.
The film, titled "Critterz," is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next May, with production already underway.
This project is a collaboration between London-based Vertigo Films and Native Foreign from Culver City, California. The companies will hire artists to create sketches that will serve as the foundation for the movie. These sketches will be transformed into scenes using multiple OpenAI models, including GPT-5, as well as unspecified image generation algorithms, according to the Wall Street Journal.
GPT-5 is the AI system behind ChatGPT. Composed of several large language models, it can generate text and analyze visual content. ChatGPT's image generation capabilities are powered by another AI model, gpt-image-1, launched by OpenAI in April.
It remains uncertain whether the filmmakers will utilize the Sora video generation model from AI provider OpenAI. Sora, introduced earlier this year, can generate clips up to one minute in length, while the version available to customers can only produce videos up to 20 seconds long.
Sora cannot generate a complete movie independently, but it may play a role during the previsualization phase. In this stage of filmmaking, artists create simple animated representations of scenes. Directors can use these sequences to plan details such as camera angles.
In theory, the production team could also use Sora to generate full scenes. Manually refining and stitching together 20-second clips may be faster than starting from scratch. However, it is still unclear whether Sora can maintain sufficient consistency across generated scenes for this approach to be effective.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the studios behind the project plan to begin casting voice actors within the coming weeks. The project’s budget is under $30 million, a fraction of the typical cost of producing a full-length animated film. The production team aims to complete the movie within nine months—significantly faster than the several years usually required.
If successful, this project could help Sora gain attention within media and entertainment companies. Several months ago, OpenAI showcased several short films generated by Sora in a Los Angeles theater, demonstrating the model’s capabilities. Previously, it held a similar event in New York and reportedly plans to host another in Tokyo.
OpenAI faces competition from Google LLC and Runway AI Inc., a well-funded developer of video generation models. In June, Runway partnered with AMC Networks Inc. to help its artists design visual effects more quickly. Prior to that, it signed an agreement to develop a custom AI model trained on Lionsgate’s movie catalog.
