Netflix has acquired InterPositive, a Los Angeles-based startup founded by actor-director Ben Affleck in 2022. The deal brings InterPositive’s 16-person team of engineers, researchers, and creatives into Netflix, with Affleck joining as a senior adviser to provide ongoing guidance on AI integration in filmmaking.
The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, though it marks a rare buy for Netflix, which typically builds tools in-house rather than acquiring external startups, and follows the company’s recent withdrawal from bidding on Warner Bros. Discovery’s assets. InterPositive develops proprietary AI-powered tools designed specifically for filmmakers and showrunners, focusing on post-production enhancements rather than generative content creation from scratch. The technology trains models on a production’s own dailies and footage to enable tasks such as color mixing and correction, relighting shots, adding visual effects, addressing continuity issues, replacing backgrounds, or handling missing elements while preserving cinematic rules and creative intent.
“Our relationship with artists has always been grounded in trust: supporting the full range of their creativity and ensuring they have the power to decide how their films and shows are made. We believe new tools should expand creative freedom, not constrain it or replace the work of writers, directors, actors, and crews. Ben and his team at InterPositive are part of a long tradition in our industry of artists leading the way in how innovation is used in storytelling. Their work is about giving filmmakers more choices, more control and more protection for their vision. We’re excited to build on that legacy together, with creators and their artistic intentions at the center of everything we do,” Bela Bajaria, Chief Content Officer at Netflix, announced in a blog post.
To provide some background, Affleck founded InterPositive in 2022 after observing early AI applications in film production and concluding that existing models fell short in representing real-world filmmaking nuances—such as lens distortions, shifting light, or production challenges. He assembled a small team to film a proprietary dataset on a controlled soundstage, training the initial model to understand visual logic, editorial consistency, and cinematic principles under unpredictable conditions. The tools aim to support responsible exploration while protecting human judgment, aligning with broader industry debates over AI’s role in creative workflows.
Netflix described the acquisition as an investment in “creator-led innovation” that keeps filmmakers at the center. This comes at a time when the integration of AI into Hollywood remains contentious, with concerns over job displacement for actors, writers, and crew (especially since the 2023 Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, where both unions secured historic protections requiring consent and compensation for AI-generated digital replicas of performers and guardrails against AI replacing writers).
It also comes on the heels of the streaming service’s exit of the Warner Bros. Discovery pursuit, focusing instead on targeted technology investments to strengthen production capabilities. By internalizing InterPositive, Netflix gains proprietary technology to streamline post-production, potentially improving efficiency and quality across its slate of films and series while reinforcing trust with creators. The acquisition could set a precedent for how streamers adopt AI in various ways.
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