Overview

• Showrunner, an Amazon-backed AI video company led by Edward Saatchi, announced a noncommercial project to recreate roughly 43 missing minutes from the 1942 film using live-action shoots with AI face and voice techniques.
• Beatrice Welles posted that she is “angry and disgusted” by the effort, and a spokesperson for the estate said the family was not informed and rejects the attempt as a mechanical exercise lacking Welles’ creative instincts.
• The company says it will not commercialize the material because rights to The Magnificent Ambersons are held by Warner Bros. Discovery and Concord, describing the work as academic unless rights holders choose otherwise.
• Filmmaker Brian Rose, who has spent years mapping Welles’ intended cuts from scripts, notes, and 3D set rebuilds, is collaborating with Showrunner, with VFX work led by Tom Clive.
• Historians note RKO removed and destroyed about 43 minutes from Welles’ original cut, and long-running searches for a complete print, including rumored copies in Brazil, have produced no verified discovery.