Netflix Has Used AI on 300 Titles as Filmmakers Weigh 40% Budget Savings Against Human Creativity

Summary

Netflix has used AI in some form on about 300 titles, according to senior APAC production director Lee Sung-gyun, who spoke at a Busan International Film Festival panel with “The Outlaws” director Kang Yoon-sung and Wētā FX CTO Kimball Thurston. Lee said the tools have been used for previs, production-design concepts, set dressing, editorial and visual effects. Netflix also presented its “hybrid production” approach, which combines live-action photography, VFX and generative tools; one example used AI and VFX to create large crowds for the Indian title “Glory,” scenes that might otherwise have been removed because of budget and schedule limits. Kang said his AI-assisted film “Run to the West” initially used rudimentary tools for compositing and creatures, but that commercial quality has improved markedly within a year. He said a fully AI-generated test for “The Gulf of Aden,” made with Kling, suggested a production-budget reduction of about 40%, partly because the shoot and schedule became simpler, not only because CG and VFX were replaced. He argued that lower costs could revive projects previously abandoned at the financing stage, including genre and science-fiction films. At the same time, Kang said AI can remove the discussion, labor and accumulated experience of many filmmakers, producing technically impressive images but weaker emotional impact. Lee agreed that human intervention remains essential. Thurston described Wētā’s denoising system as “assistive AI” that fixes pixels without changing creative intent, while warning that models trained on video may reproduce inaccurate colors. Wētā is also developing an open-source tool with the Academy Software Foundation to track AI use and provenance. The panelists said actors should not be replaced: Kang sees AI as more suitable for stunt and stand-in work, while film and drama will continue to depend on credibility and human storytelling.