Ron Howard has gone to outer space with Apollo 13, underwater with Splash and to Nockmaar with Willow.But the all-timer wouldn’t mind making another journey, this time with AI. And thinks many other directors will too.“It’s very exciting in terms of its potential to more efficiently and more broadly help the storytellers get their ideas out there,” Howard said. “There are so many facts yet to be sorted out,” he added, but the possibilities are very appealing and others will agree. “We will want it.”Howard was speaking at the Runway AI Film Festival at Lincoln Center in New York Thursday, where he talked on stage with the video-generation company’s co-founder Chris Valenzuela. That conversation followed a similar AI-themed talk from earlier this spring between Valenzuela and Kathleen Kennedy, who was more circumspect.Perhaps most strikingly, Howard said that one of the most influential hand-crafted entertainer of the 20th century would also embrace AI if he was alive today.“Jim Henson just wanted to be busy making [things],” said Howard, who came to know the Muppets creator well from working on the 2024 documentary about him Idea Man. “That’s what these tools make so available and why they’re so exciting.”