Two original sci-fi features built around generative AI across their entire production pipeline have been unveiled at the Cannes Film Market, as filmmaker Chuck Russell and his company Neumorphic AI set a production partnership with generative video platform Higgsfield.
The projects, “Hyperia” and “b,” will deploy AI tools from worldbuilding and creature design through to VFX, editing and post, while live actors shoot on LED volumes with AI-generated environments built around them.
“Hyperia” centers on a fugitive thrown into a punishing hover-sled race on an extraterrestrial world governed by a rogue AI. “b” revisits a project that drew industry attention as the first feature to cast a humanoid robot in a leading role. That robot, Erica, was developed at the University of Osaka, and her creator, Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, returns to the new production as android supervisor. Elena Kaya serves as generative AI supervisor, with Anoush Sadegh as executive producer. The story tracks a sentient digital life form – the first of her kind – after she escapes her creator’s lab, triggering an international race to retrieve her before military contractors intervene.
Neumorphic AI was co-founded by Russell – whose credits include “The Mask,” “Eraser,” “The Scorpion King” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” with a combined global box office of more than $1 billion – alongside VFX supervisor Erick Geisler, a two-time Emmy winner, and AI scientist Sam Khoze.
