OpenAI is backing the production of the first film largely animated with AI tools, set to premiere at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. The tech company aims to demonstrate that its AI technology can revolutionize Hollywood filmmaking by enabling faster production timelines and significantly lower costs.
The movie is titled “Critterz” and will be about woodland creatures that go on an adventure after a stranger damages their village. The film’s producers are aiming for a global theatrical release after the premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
The project has a budget of less than $30 million and a production timeline of nine months. This is a comparable and significant difference, given that most mainstream animated movies have budgets in the range of $100 to $200 million, whilst also having a three-year development and production cycle.
The OpenAI-backed project started as a short film
Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, originally began developing “Critterz” as a short film three years ago, using the company’s DALL-E image generation tool to develop the concept. Nelson has now partnered with London-based Vertigo Films and Los Angeles studio Native Foreign to expand the project into a feature film.
In the news release that announced OpenAI’s backing of the film, Nelson said, “OpenAI can say what its tools do all day long, but it’s much more impactful if someone does it,” adding, “That’s a much better case study than me building a demo.” Crucially, however, the film’s production will not be entirely AI-generated, as it will blend AI technology with human work.
OpenAI confirms they're helping make an AI-generated movie called 'Critterz'
• Goal is to finish production in 9 months
• Budget is ~$30M
• Plan is to debut the film at Canne
• 'Paddington 3' writers penned the script
• They're now casting voice actors
• Art will be fed… pic.twitter.com/PVMtrhVUaH— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) September 8, 2025
Human artists will draw sketches that will be fed into OpenAI’s tools such as GPT-5, the LLM on which ChatGPT is built, as well as other image-generating AI models. Human actors will voice the characters.
“Criterrz” will be funded by Vertigo’s Paris-based parent company, Federation Studios, with some 30 contributors set to share profits.
Critterz has some of the writing team behind the smash hit, “Paddington in Peru.”
Despite having some of the writing team behind the hit film “Paddington in Peru”, it comes at a time of intense legal battles between Hollywood studios and AI and other tech companies over intellectual property rights.
Studios like Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. have filed for copyright infringement suits against Midjourney, another AI firm, alleging that they illegally used their characters to train its image generation engine.
OpenAI mise sur un film d'animation IA pour prouver ses capacités Hollywood !
Le film Critterz vise une sortie mondiale en 2026 avec une 1ère au Festival de Cannes.
Le projet sert de test grandeur nature pour l'IA générative dans la production cinématographique professionnelle.… pic.twitter.com/RjjKvdn807
— Ender | IA (@ia_ender) September 9, 2025
Crucially, however, “Critterz” will not be the first feature film ever made with generative AI. Last year, “DreadClub: Vampire’s Verdict” was released and is widely considered the first feature film entirely made by generative AI. It had a budget of $405.
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