A24 Takes Google's $75M, Tells Fans to Trust the Process

A24 has accepted a $75 million research partnership with Google's DeepMind, granting the AI company access to its creative workflows while promising no direct use of its content library. The deal has sparked backlash from fans and filmmakers who fear it undermines the studio's auteur-driven ethos, as Hollywood increasingly embraces Big Tech funding for AI tools.

A24, the indie studio that built its brand on human creativity, just took $75 million from Google's DeepMind and told its audience to trust the process — or at least trust that having "a seat at the table" beats being on the menu. The partnership gives A24 and its tech arm, A24 Labs, access to DeepMind's research infrastructure while Google's researchers work inside the studio to build AI workflows and tools. The deal doesn't give Google access to A24's content library or data, and there's no mandate for filmmakers to use whatever gets built. But the money flows one way, and the tools flow the other — straight from the world's most powerful tech company into the creative pipeline of a studio that made its name on weird, human, auteur-driven films. A24 spokesperson Sophia Shin told Wired the deal is a "research partnership" and insisted the studio doesn't "necessarily love" current AI outputs in Hollywood. "This partnership is about learning and helping pain points in workflows behind the scenes more than anything else," Shin said. The framing: don't worry, it's just back-office efficiency, not robots writing your scripts. Shin added: "We'd rather have a seat at the table than on the sidelines." It's the same line every industry tells itself when the check clears. Fans weren't buying it. Variety reported that A24's social media was flooded with criticism. "What the hell is up with the AI collaboration? Do you know your fanbase?" one Instagram user wrote. Another called the deal "rancid." Deadline, for its part, framed the pushback as cinephile hand-wringing and buried the $75 million figure deep in its copy, while Variety didn't report the dollar amount at all. The broader pattern is clear. Disney sank $1 billion into OpenAI's Sora text-to-video app before that deal collapsed. Lionsgate expanded its partnership with AI firm Runway to develop AI-generated shows from existing IP. Netflix bought Ben Affleck's AI startup InterPositive earlier this year. Hollywood isn't debating whether to let Big Tech in — it's auctioning off the seats. DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said in a blog post that "the best way to develop tools that empower artists is to work directly with them." But A24's own filmmakers aren't buying it. "Backrooms" director Kane Parsons called generative AI "a symptom of broader cultural and economic rot" and told The Australian he'd probably "snap" his "fingers and make generative AI disappear forever" if he could. "Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools," Parsons said. "It defeats the purpose entirely for me." The question isn't whether AI can help with workflow. It's who builds the tools, who funds them, and what those tools are optimized to produce when a $75 million check comes attached to a Big Tech giant that already controls what most Americans see, read, and click. A24 says it wants a seat at the table. The question is whether the table still belongs to filmmakers — or whether Google just bought the whole dining room.