A24, the “independent” film production studio behind the likes of Backrooms, Uncut Gems, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Hereditary, has signed an “artificial-intelligence research partnership” deal with Google. Shockingly, the same fans who love the studio’s arthouse and cult films aren’t too happy about this, with many announcing that they’ll be cancelling their subscriptions to its AAA24 membership service.
As detailed in The Wall Street Journal’s exclusive report, Google is investing roughly $75 million into A24 via its parent company, Alphabet. The research partnership deal will give A24 access to Google DeepMind, the artificial intelligence research laboratory purchased by Google in 2014.
According to WSJ’s report, Google’s AI tech will be used to create new tools for “movie production & distribution,” with A24’s Scott Belsky stating that his production division primarily intends to use Google DeepMind for storyboarding. Belsky was, however, quick to state that said storyboards “won’t look anything like the prompted generation type of AI that people feel uncomfortable with.”
https://t.co/UHLnVIdRgy pic.twitter.com/hRU3hjJzvo
— House Of Horrors (@HouseOfHorrorCo) June 23, 2026
Belsky’s rapid defense of the AI slop he intends to produce was likely in preparation for the deluge of hate that has since come his way, as A24 fans immediately began to eviscerate the studio online. Several fans on the likes of X and Reddit have absolutely slated A24 for its Google DeepMind partnership. In fact, the r/A24 subreddit is in full meltdown mode, as multiple posts have appeared in the past 24 hours featuring people cancelling their membership in AAA24, a subscription service whose benefits include a ticket to every A24 release.
On one hand, perhaps this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, as A24 has been dipping its toes into the AI slop factory for some time now. The AI-generated posters for Alex Garland’s Civil War in 2024 should have been our first warning.
On the other hand, given the extremely poor reaction to said posters, I can only assume that the folks at the head of A24 live in some kind of fully insulated bubble that blocks out Wi-Fi signals, because you’d have to be terminally offline to not realize that your fanbase of film nerds, who love auteur-focused, artistically driven projects, wouldn’t be on board with something like this. It would be sort of like if Bob Ross decided to ask ChatGPT to generate him a picture of a rainbow instead of painting it himself.