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Orson Welles’ Lost Movie to Be Recreated Using AI

Over 80 years ago, executives burned 43 minutes of footage; now, Showrunner is set to spend the next two years recreating it with AI.

The lost 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ 1942 follow-up film to Citizen Kane will be reconstructed by an Amazon-funded studio. Fable, founded and helmed by Edward Saatchi, developed the AI-generated TV show service, Showrunner, which will be used over the next two years to re-create Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons. The film had nearly a third of its footage burned by RKO Pictures executives after Welles conceded his rights to the final cut. However, the recreation will not be commercialized since the AI firm hasn’t obtained the rights to the film from Warner Bros. Discovery or Concord. “The goal isn’t to commercialize the 43 minutes, but to see them exist in the world after 80 years of people asking ‘might this have been the best film ever made in its original form?’” CEO Saatchi said. Showrunner allows users to create TV show episodes with just a short text prompt. Saatchi called the platform the “Netflix of AI,” with it being a platform solely dedicated to hosting AI-generated content. “Year by year, the technology is getting closer to prompting entire films with AI,” he said. When the film was screened in July 1942 for critics, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the 87-minute cut is “a screen offering of magnificent artistic merits.”