ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is backing the production of a feature-length animated film created largely with artificial intelligence tools, aiming to prove the technology can revolutionize Hollywood filmmaking with faster timelines and lower costs.

The movie, titled “Critterz,” follows woodland creatures on an adventure after their village is disrupted by a stranger, with producers hoping to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026 before a global theatrical release, they said in statement on Monday.

The project has a budget of under $30 million and a production timeline of just nine months—a fraction of the typical $100-200 million cost and three-year development cycle for major animated features.

“Critterz” originated as a short film by Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, who began developing the concept three years ago using the company’s DALL-E image generation tool.

Nelson has partnered with London-based Vertigo Films and Los Angeles studio Native Foreign to expand the project into a full-length feature.

“OpenAI can say what its tools do all day long, but it’s much more impactful if someone does it,” Nelson said in the news release. “That’s a much better case study than me building a demo.”

The production will blend AI technology with human work.

Artists will draw sketches that are fed into OpenAI’s tools, including GPT-5 and image-generating models, while human actors will voice the characters.

The script was written by some of the same writers behind the successful “Paddington in Peru.”

However the project comes amid intense legal battles between Hollywood studios and AI companies over intellectual property rights.

Major studios including Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against AI firm Midjourney, alleging the company illegally trained its models on their characters.

The film is funded by Vertigo’s Paris-based parent company, Federation Studios, with about 30 contributors sharing profits through a specialized compensation model.

Critterz will not be the first animated feature film made with generative AI.

In 2024, “DreadClub: Vampire’s Verdict,” considered the first AI animated feature film and made with a budget of $405, was released, as well as “Where the Robots Grow.”

Those releases, as well as the original “Critterz” short film, received mixed reactions from viewers, with some critics questioning whether current AI technology can produce cinema-quality content that resonates emotionally with audiences.

© 2025 AFP

Surrounded by thousands of objects bearing the likeness of Nintendo’s mustachioed plumber, 40-year-old Kikai reflects that his “life would be totally different without Mario” who also marks four decades this week.

The colorful “Super Mario Bros.,” released for Nintendo’s home consoles in Japan on September 13, 1985, was a landmark of early video gaming.

Players controlled the eponymous character as he ran and hopped his way from left to right through a colorful world of platforms, pipes and scowling enemies—all set to the jaunty eight-bit music that has stuck in minds for decades.

“My father bought me the game, and I’ve been playing for as long as I can remember,” Kikai told AFP in his office lined with somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand Mario-related objects, from plastic figurines to plush toys and carpets.

Created by legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario has obsessed several generations of fans like Kikai.

The character’s first appearance came in 1981 arcade game “Donkey Kong,” when he was known simply as “Jumpman.”

Mario’s christening came in 1983 with the “Mario Bros.” arcade cabinet, but his true rise to fame was with “Super Mario Bros.” on Nintendo’s Famicom console (known as the NES in Europe), which has sold more than 40 million copies.

‘Lucky accident’

“It was a lucky accident, because at the start there was no plan for this character to become a video gaming icon,” said Alexis Bross, the French co-author of the book “Mario Generations.”

The plumber’s look was initially chosen to conserve scarce computing resources and make him stand out on screen, with bright blue overalls and a cap that saved on animating hair.

Miyamoto created Mario as “a completely functional character under very strict technical constraints” governing the few pixels making up his image, Bross noted.

But as the games endured through the years, their star became a “generation-spanning” and even “reassuring” presence, he added.

“He’s a regular man, not unlike us, who has no special powers at the outset and stays a bit frozen in time.”

Beyond Mario’s mainline adventures, spinoff games have dropped him, his buddies like brother Luigi and his rivals like dragon Bowser into “Mario Golf,” “Mario Tennis” and the vastly popular “Mario Kart.”

Graphics have evolved from 2D to 3D as the games’ reach has spread to many hundreds of millions of players worldwide.

But the original pixelated look has long inspired artists making their own riffs on the character.

Lyon-based street artist In The Woup, who declined to give his real name, has been mashing Mario up with other characters like Gandalf from “The Lord of the Rings” or “Star Wars” antagonist Darth Vader in guerilla mosaics dotting cities around the world for years.

“Bringing things from my games console out on the street means bringing immaterial things out into real life. I thought that was pretty crazy,” the 39-year-old said, a Mario mask securely concealing his face to keep up his anonymity.

Changing with the times

Many of today’s children and teens have turned towards more recent heavyweight gaming titles such as Fortnite and Roblox.

But Mario still enjoys a high “parental nostalgia” quotient, with those now heading into middle age still buying the games and playing together with their offspring, said Rhys Elliott of analytics firm Alinea.

Nintendo has looked to evolve along with its audience, recently launching a range of baby clothing and accessories in Japan.

Mario also graces goods from luxury watches to Lego, as well as being the star of theme parks in both Japan and the US.

And in 2023, the plucky plumber made a successful leap to the big screen after a 1993 flop that was one of the first ever game-to-movie adaptations.

The more recent film brought in over $1.3 billion, with a sequel in the works for next year.

With gender relations in a different light today than 40 years ago, Mario’s objective in-game is no longer securing a kiss from a grateful rescued princess.

Nintendo’s princesses are more likely these days to star in their own titles, as the company “adapts to new audiences, following little by little developments in society,” author Bross said.

Even now, fans are eagerly awaiting a new Mario-led 3D adventure following the blockbuster release of the Nintendo Switch 2 console this June.

Bross hopes to see “a totally new idea that will be a new milestone in the history of videogames.”

© 2025 AFP

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