Netflix has disclosed in a regulatory filing that it paid $587 million in cash to acquire InterPositive, an AI filmmaking startup co-founded by actor and director Ben Affleck. The deal, first announced in March, sees the entire InterPositive team join Netflix, with Affleck taking on a senior advisory role. The acquisition underscores Netflix's growing bet on generative AI tools within its production pipeline, at a time when the use of AI in filmmaking remains a contentious issue across Hollywood.

Affleck has said the tools are designed to "protect the power of human creativity" rather than replace it, with InterPositive's technology used in post-production to fix "real-world production challenges" such as missing shots, background replacements or poor lighting. Netflix had not previously disclosed the financial terms, though a Bloomberg report had suggested the deal could be worth up to $600 million. In its latest earnings report, Netflix said around 300 of its titles have already made use of generative AI.