Why Is an Amazon-Backed AI Startup Producing Fan Fiction About Orson Welles?

On Friday, a startup called Fable launched an ambitious and somewhat perplexing project aiming to recreate the missing 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ legendary film “The Magnificent Ambersons.”

What drives a startup that brands itself as the “Netflix of AI” and has recently attracted investment from Amazon’s Alexa Fund to remake a film that’s over 80 years old?

The answer lies in Fable’s innovative platform, allowing users to craft their own animations through AI prompts. While the company starts with its original creations, it plans to extend similar capabilities to Hollywood properties. In fact, its technology has already been employed to generate unauthorized episodes of “South Park.”

Currently, Fable is introducing a new AI model that claims to generate lengthy and complex narratives. Over the next two years, filmmaker Brian Rose — who has spent five years reconstructing Welles’ original concept — aims to use this model to recreate the missing scenes from “The Magnificent Ambersons.”

Notably, Fable has not obtained the film’s rights, making this effort a potential tech showcase unlikely to reach the public.

Why focus on “Ambersons”? If you’re not a Welles fan, it might seem like an odd choice for a digital revival. Even among classic film enthusiasts, “Ambersons” often takes a backseat to its more renowned sibling — while “Citizen Kane” is often touted as the greatest film ever made, Welles’ second feature is remembered as a lost masterpiece, drastically altered by the studio with an implausibly cheerful ending.

The film’s legacy — evoking a sense of loss and unrealized potential — likely attracted both Fable’s and Rose’s attention. However, it’s essential to emphasize that our current interest in “The Magnificent Ambersons” largely stems from Welles himself — especially considering how its incomplete release negatively influenced his Hollywood career and how, despite its faults, it showcases his directorial genius.

It’s particularly surprising that Fable seemingly didn’t reach out to Welles’ estate. David Reeder, who manages the estate for Welles’ daughter Beatrice, described the project to Variety as an “attempt to gain publicity using Welles’ creative legacy,” asserting that it would ultimately be “a purely mechanical endeavor devoid of any uniquely innovative thinking typical of a creative mind like Welles.”

Despite Reeder’s critique, he seems more let down by the lack of outreach from Fable than the project itself. He pointed out that “the estate has embraced AI technology to create a voice model intended for use in VO work with brands.”

I’m not as receptive to this notion. Even if Welles’ heirs had been consulted and compensated, I would still lack interest in this new “Ambersons,” just as I would not want to hear a digital imitation of Welles’s iconic voice used for marketing new products.

Welles enthusiasts know this isn’t the first time people have attempted to posthumously edit or finish his films. Yet, previous attempts at least made use of footage that Welles originally shot. Fable, however, indicates its approach will combine AI with traditional filmmaking — reportedly, certain scenes will be reshot with contemporary actors whose faces will be digitally swapped to recreate the original cast.

The absurdity of announcing a project like this without film rights or the approval of Welles’ daughter is evident, yet Rose seems genuinely committed to honoring Welles’ vision. For instance, when discussing his motivation to recreate the film, Rose expressed sorrow over the loss of “a four-minute-long, unbroken moving camera shot whose absence is a tragedy,” with only 50 seconds of that shot preserved in the edited version.

I resonate with his sense of loss — but I also believe this is a tragedy that AI cannot mend.

No matter how deftly Fable and Rose may piece together their interpretation of that tracking shot, it will ultimately be their shot, featuring artificially created versions of Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead, instead of the actual actors. The resulting product will not reflect Welles’ rendition of “The Magnificent Ambersons” that RKO altered nearly 80 years ago. Without a miraculous rediscovery of lost footage, that version is lost to time.