Again in March, the leisure business was considerably shocked to be taught that Netflix was shopping for a synthetic intelligence firm based by… Ben Affleck?
Nobody actually knew Ben was concerned in an AI startup, not to mention one superior sufficient that the world’s largest streaming firm would need to purchase it. Much more surprisingly, Affleck had based the corporate, referred to as InterPositive, all the way in which again in 2022.
4 years earlier!
InterPositive had one way or the other operated in near-total secrecy throughout probably the most carefully watched know-how booms in historical past. Even individuals deeply embedded within the AI startup ecosystem appeared to know little or no concerning the firm earlier than Netflix introduced the deal.
In accordance with business reporting, a number of individuals who frequently labored with AI startups stated they’d by no means even heard of InterPositive. The corporate’s LinkedIn web page was created solely after the acquisition was introduced, its on-line footprint was just about nonexistent, and solely a handful of workers had been publicly related to the enterprise.
Then there was the largest thriller of all:Â How a lot was Netflix paying to amass Ben Affleck’s stealth AI firm?
SEC Submitting Reveals Payday
Within the “Acquisitions” part of its quarterly report, Netflix included the next sentence:
“In March 2026, the Firm accomplished an acquisition which was accounted for as a enterprise mixture for a complete buy value of roughly $587 million, consisting of money consideration.”
That is it. Netflix doesn’t establish the acquired firm. The submitting doesn’t point out Ben Affleck, InterPositive, synthetic intelligence, or filmmaking. It merely reveals that Netflix accomplished an unnamed acquisition in March for roughly $587 million in money.
Did Ben Affleck Personally Make $587 Million?
No. Netflix paid $587 million for the corporate, not on to Ben Affleck alone.
InterPositive had exterior monetary backing, together with assist from RedBird Capital Companions, the funding agency that additionally helped finance Affleck and Matt Damon’s manufacturing firm, Artists Fairness. Different buyers and workers can also have owned fairness.
After we first coated the acquisition, we estimated that Affleck might have owned someplace between 30% and 50% of InterPositive. That was solely a tough approximation based mostly on his position as founder and RedBird’s monetary backing, not a confirmed possession determine.
Utilizing the newly disclosed $587 million buy value, these hypothetical stakes can be price:
30% stake would translate to roughly $176 million earlier than taxes and charges 40% stake can be price round $235 million 50% stake can be price roughly $294 million
Utilizing a mid-range, 40% fairness vary, we estimate that Ben Affleck’s web price has roughly doubled to $300 million. That makes him nearly precisely twice as wealthy pretty much as good buddy Matt Damon’s $170 million web price. At $300 million, he is $100 million shy of Jennifer Lopez’s web price. He now tops Jennifer Garner’s web price by round $220 million. And that is even after her meals firm, As soon as Upon a Farm, went public not too long ago and at present sports activities a $760 million market cap… as a result of she truly has a surprisingly small fairness stake.
Why Does Interpositive Do?
InterPositive is just not an AI system designed to provide complete films from a written immediate. Affleck has repeatedly emphasised that he doesn’t imagine synthetic intelligence can substitute the human creativity concerned in writing, performing, or directing.
As a substitute, InterPositive developed instruments for the post-production course of.
Affleck and his crew created a proprietary dataset by capturing footage on a closed soundstage. That materials was used to coach an AI mannequin to grasp visible logic, editorial continuity, and cinematic consistency.
A filmmaker can then feed the system footage from a particular manufacturing, permitting InterPositive to construct a personalized mannequin based mostly solely on that challenge’s characters, units, lighting, and visible model. Editors and visual-effects artists can use the instruments to relight pictures, substitute backgrounds, appropriate continuity issues, take away undesirable objects, and probably create lacking pictures with out ranging from scratch.
Consider it as an especially subtle post-production assistant, not an AI director.
That distinction is essential in Hollywood, the place writers, actors, and visual-effects staff have raised severe issues about studios utilizing AI to interchange jobs or practice techniques on copyrighted work with out permission. InterPositive’s know-how is positioned as a creator-controlled instrument educated on footage {that a} manufacturing owns and authorizes.
Why Netflix Was Keen To Pay So A lot
A $587 million price ticket could seem insane for a mysterious 16-person startup with nearly no public historical past. However Netflix is just not valuing InterPositive based mostly on its variety of workers, its social media presence, or its present income.
Netflix is betting on how a lot the know-how might save throughout tons of of productions.
The streaming firm spends tens of billions of {dollars} yearly buying and producing content material. Put up-production, visible results, reshoots, and corrections can add hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to a person challenge’s funds. If InterPositive can scale back these bills throughout Netflix’s international manufacturing operation, the potential financial savings could possibly be monumental.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has stated that roughly 300 Netflix productions have already used synthetic intelligence someplace within the inventive course of, with the most important focus occurring in post-production.
Sarandos cited the Tom Hanks-backed documentary “The American Experiment,” which reportedly included 17 minutes of AI-enhanced footage. In accordance with Sarandos, these sequences had been accomplished twice as shortly and at half the price of the standard options.
If InterPositive can persistently produce these sorts of outcomes, Netflix might theoretically get better its $587 million funding by means of years of decrease manufacturing prices.
