Meet Showrunner, The ‘Netflix Of AI’ That Turns Viewers Into TV Show Creators
The company behind last year’s outrageous South Park AI episode generator is launching its own creation platform today, allowing users to make their own TV shows with AI.
The Simulation (formerly Fable Studio) announced 10 TV shows (web series) made with Showrunner, the company’s text-to-episode system, each in different styles, from anime to Pixar-style, to the cutout style of South Park.
“It’s the Netflix of AI,” founder and CEO Edward Saatchi told me. “Watch an episode, or make an episode.”
Hutzpa!, Exit Valley, Pixels, Sim Francisco and What We Leave Behind are all series set in the virtual world of Sim-Francisco. With a prompt of 10 to 15 words, users can generate scenes and episodes of ranging from two to 16 minutes, all with AI dialogue, voice, editing, different shot types, consistent characters and story development. Those who want to dive deeper can edit their episodes’ scripts, shots, voices and remake episodes, but Showrunner is targeted at non-technical, non-professional users.
“Generating a new TV show should be as easy as browsing Netflix for a show,” says Philipp Maas, co-creator of Showrunner.
As part of the launch Thursday, Showrunner released two episodes of Exit Valley, a Silicon Valley satire starring iconic figures like Musk, Zuck and Sam Altman. The show is an animated comedy targeting 22 episodes in its first season, some made by Fable and the rest made by users and selected by a jury of filmmakers and creatives. The other shows like Ikiru Shinu and Shadows over Shinjuku are set in Neo-Tokyo, in distinct anime worlds, and will open to user interaction later this year.
Fable released a research paper on how it built the SHOW-1 model and AI Showrunner Agents that can write, produce, direct, cast, edit, voice and animate episodes of AI TV.
“Our South Park episodes were a research project that took on a life of their own,” said technical founder Jacob Madden. Showrunner demonstrated its SHOW-1 model last year with nine episodes of South Park AI including the 22-minute episode “Westland Chronicles,” about “Bizney” developing an AI stuffed toy with disastrous consequences. The episodes, made as research without the permission of the South Park creators, received more than 8 million views and, according to Saatchi, resulted in meetings with Fox, Netflix, Paramount and Sony.
“It’s become consensus to say that AI is ‘just’ a tool in the toolbox, merely another stage of VFX technology — we believe it’s a much more radical disruption, and that Hollywood will make two-way entertainment: audiences watching a season of a show, loving it and then making new episodes with a few words, audiences putting themselves in shows. The platform allows showrunners to experiment with their stories in real-time, constantly iterating and refining their vision,” said Showrunner co-creator Jacob Madden. “Showrunner redefines what a TV show can be in that it lets a viewer watch a show, love it, and instantly become a creator of the next episode.”
The company included teasers for many of the 10 shows it announced Thursday. Exit Valley is available for all alpha users and the rest are being made by creators (posters above). Shows include:
Exit Valley, a vicious Silicon Valley satire. The first two episodes are being released Thursday.
Pixels, a gentle family comedy of AI-enabled devices living in Sim Francisco
What We Leave Behind, an anime family drama about two orphans in Sim Francisco
Ikiru Shinu, a dark horror anime focused on the survivors of a global calamity trying to rebuild society
United Flavors of America, a cartoon political satire of U.S. politics in 2024
The Prize, a spaceship-set story about spacefaring explorers encountering aliens
Hutzpa! Bernie, a curmudgeonly widower, checks himself into a rundown senior home, where the misfit residents show him that he may be the one who’s got some learning to do.
Sim Francisco, an anthology show of the stories of everyday people living in Sim Francisco
Shadows over Shinjuku, a 1930s-set anime detective noir drama
Thistle Gulch, a Western town with dark secrets
Showrunner isn’t like Pika and Runway, which let you make anything (but you only get a silent 3–8 second clip without story and inconsistent characters across scenes). Showrunner is limited to specific styles, including cutout, anime and 3D animation.
While Saatchi is bullish on the tech, a major weakness of Showrunner and AI in general for entertainment is that it’s more suited to episodic content rather than the epic 10–50 episode arcs of shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. Saatchi admits, “Today AI can’t sustain a story beyond one episode. What AI is strongest at is deeply episodic shows with characters largely resetting every episode — sitcoms, police procedurals, space exploration.” Showrunner only does animation right now, but Saatchi believes live action is not far off.
He and his team at The Simulation have been working with AI for five years. Fable’s critically acclaimed VR Film, Wolves in the Wall, released in November 2019, starred Lucy, an AI-enabled character. She was built using OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Inside the simulation, the user is cast as Lucy’s imaginary friend. Fable experimented with Lucy, taking her outside the Wolves story and treating her like a child star who played a role in their VR production.
