DeepMind gets cinematic with A24

Hollywood's relationship with generative AI has mostly looked like a cold war of lawsuits, strikes, and uneasy boardroom pitches. Now, the industry's most beloved indie darling is officially crossing the floor.

Google DeepMind just announced a first-of-its-kind research partnership with A24, the studio behind hits like Everything Everywhere All at Once and the upcoming The Backrooms. As part of the tie-up, Google is also making an equity investment into the mini-major.

While neither side confirmed the exact check size, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google invested around $75 million, matching previous rounds from backers like Thrive and allowing A24 to stay completely independent.

Not an IP grab, but a workflow lab

DeepMind VP of Product Eli Collins clarified that this isn't a traditional movie production deal or an IP licensing grab. Most crucially, it isn't an agreement to feed A24's back catalog into DeepMind's training datasets.

Instead, the partnership embeds DeepMind researchers directly alongside A24 filmmakers across multiple projects over time. The goal is to give artists hands-on input into shaping emerging tech, while DeepMind gets real-time critique from top-tier storytellers.

A24 gains access to DeepMind's infrastructure and global computing resources, while its directors retain full creative control over the final output.

Why it matters

While OpenAI spent the last few months touring Hollywood to woo studios with Sora demos, Google just quietly wrote a nine-figure-adjacent check to partner with the coolest studio in town.

We think this is a masterstroke in product positioning. Film crews have spent two years rolling their eyes at tech demos that hallucinate extra fingers and fail basic continuity. By anchoring engineers directly inside actual film productions, DeepMind gets to solve the boring, unsexy pipeline problems that actually matter to directors.

For filmmakers, this suggests that the next generation of studio software might actually be built for humans who care about craft, rather than prompt engineers churning out stock footage.

That said, the deal carries real cultural risks for A24. The studio's brand is built on uncompromising, auteur-led cinema and anti-corporate cred. Even with promises of creative independence, the moment an A24 release feels overly touched by Google algorithms, audiences and industry guilds won't hesitate to push back.