A foreign language action comedy is headed to U.S. movie theaters this spring, but audiences won’t have to groan about subtitles. For the first time, an international feature film will look and sound as if it was made in English thanks to artificial intelligence.
Though the supernatural Swedish adventure “Watch the Skies” was made in its native tongue, AI company Flawless has digitally altered the film’s images and sound so character mouth movements and speech will be perfectly synced for English speaking viewers.
AMC Theatres, the nation’s top movie chain, has committed 100 screens to the project in the top 20 markets across America. Flawless has partnered with distributor XYZ films to roll the film out to cineplexes on May 9.
“For the movie industry, this is a game changer,” producer Albin Pettersson said in a making-of featurette included below. The original film was titled “UFO Sweden,” and a full trailer for the English-language version is expected next week.
Variety previously wrote about Flawless AI on the heels of last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where co-founder Scott Mann discussed the ethics of reformatting and the potential international films will now have in North America.
“Showing our materials to filmmakers, especially over the past year, they realize the potential from going to a local stage to a global stage. It’s a huge opportunity to get your work out and it’s been invigorating. They are so excited about showing their work in a wider audience, and especially in America,” said Mann.
See more about Flawless’ proprietary tech:
