The studio behind "Everything Everywhere All at Once" and this year's horror sensation "Backrooms" just took a $75 million check from Google. That sentence alone tells you how much the AI-Hollywood relationship has shifted in the past year.
On June 22, 2026, Google DeepMind and A24 announced a research partnership that comes with real money attached: roughly $75 million invested by Google, first reported by The Wall Street Journal. It's Alphabet's first-ever equity stake in a movie studio — and the timing matters as much as the dollar figure.
Here's what's actually in this deal, what it isn't, and why one of A24's own directors is already pushing back on it.
What's Actually In the Deal
💡 The short version: Google DeepMind is investing approximately $75 million in A24 as part of a multiyear, nonexclusive research partnership. DeepMind researchers will work directly with A24's in-house tech team to build AI tools for filmmakers — starting with AI-generated storyboards. Google does not get access to A24's film library or its data as part of the deal.
That last point is the one doing the most work here, and it's worth sitting with. This isn't Google buying training data from a studio's back catalog. According to reporting from IndieWire, it's not an IP deal, not a data-training deal, and not a production deal — meaning there's no requirement that the partnership actually result in a specific film or product. It's structured as research and development, full stop.
The first concrete project taking shape inside A24 Labs — the 20-person technology division run by Scott Belsky, who joined the studio from Adobe in 2025 — is AI-assisted storyboarding: the rough visual sketches directors use to plan scenes before a camera ever rolls.
DeepMind already has informal collaborations with individual filmmakers, including Darren Aronofsky, but this marks the first time it's partnered with an entire studio rather than a single director's project.
What This Means If You're Just a Moviegoer
✅ The practical reality: you're not going to see "AI-generated" stamped across an A24 trailer any time soon. The tools coming out of this partnership are aimed at the production process — storyboarding, planning, workflow — not at replacing actors, writers, or finished footage. If it works the way both companies are describing it, the most likely outcome is movies that still look and feel like A24 movies, made with a slightly different set of tools behind the scenes that audiences never directly see.
That's also precisely why this deal is structured the way it is. A24's entire brand value comes from audiences trusting that what they're watching is a distinct creative vision, not an algorithmic output. Any tool that visibly changes that risks the exact asset Google is paying $75 million to be associated with in the first place.
Why Google Wants This Specific Studio
Google already has its own video-generation model, Veo, and plenty of compute power. What it doesn't have is credibility with the kind of filmmakers who shape culture — and A24 has spent over a decade building exactly that. The studio counts more than half of all moviegoers as fans according to its own survey data, a level of brand loyalty most production companies never come close to.
DeepMind VP of Product Eli Collins put the logic plainly: real breakthroughs happen when you put new technology directly into the hands of skilled practitioners, not when you build in a vacuum and hope it fits how they actually work. For Google, a partnership with respected auteurs isn't just a product-testing arrangement — it's also a credibility stamp at a moment when several prominent directors have been openly hostile to generative AI in filmmaking.
The Part of This Story That's Actually Tense
⚠️ Not everyone at A24 is on board. Kane Parsons, who directed the studio's record-breaking film "Backrooms," has publicly criticized the spread of generative AI in filmmaking, describing it as a symptom of broader cultural and economic decline. He's not alone — directors including Guillermo del Toro and Vince Gilligan have voiced similar skepticism about AI's place in the creative process. A24 entering this deal anyway says something about where the studio's business leadership sees the industry heading, even if it doesn't reflect every filmmaker under its banner.
A24 Labs head Scott Belsky has tried to draw a clear line between this partnership and the kind of AI tools that make audiences and creatives uneasy. He's argued that most AI filmmaking pitches get sold on the wrong premise — making movies cheaper and faster — when the better use case is tools that preserve creative control and support genuine creative risk-taking, not generic prompt-and-generate video output.
Hollywood's AI Year Has Been Messy — Here's Where This Fits
This deal doesn't exist in isolation. It's the latest entry in a year of Hollywood studios making very different bets on AI:
- Disney + OpenAI: A short-lived deal involving Disney's characters collapsed after OpenAI pulled its Sora video tool in March 2026 — while Disney simultaneously sued AI companies including MiniMax and Midjourney over copyright infringement.
- Lionsgate + Runway AI: Took the opposite approach from A24's deal — actively building custom AI models trained directly on Lionsgate's own franchise IP to develop new content.
- Netflix + InterPositive: Acquired the Ben Affleck-founded AI startup outright, keeping the technology in-house rather than partnering externally.
- Amazon + OpenAI: A cloud-computing deal between Amazon and OpenAI reportedly led Amazon to shelve a nearly finished biopic about OpenAI's Sam Altman over the resulting conflict of interest.
Against that backdrop, A24's deal is notably more conservative: no content library access, no production mandate, explicitly billed as research. Whether that caution holds up over a "multiyear" partnership — or quietly expands the way most tech partnerships do — is the open question nobody can answer yet, including, probably, the two companies themselves.
The Money Context That Makes This Make Sense
A24 isn't a struggling indie label looking for a lifeline. Its revenue has more than doubled over the past two years as it's expanded into unscripted television, theater, and international production, including a new UK office. The studio is currently funding its most expensive production ever — a reported $175 million adaptation of the video game "Elden Ring," directed by Alex Garland.
Google's $75 million is reportedly in line with what investment firm Thrive Capital put into A24 during its last funding round, which valued the studio at $3.5 billion. In other words: Google isn't rescuing A24. It's buying its way into the room of a studio that's already growing on its own terms — which is a very different, and arguably more interesting, story than a cash-strapped studio selling access out of necessity.
It's also a small piece of Google's much larger AI spending spree. The company has separately committed up to $40 billion to Anthropic, including a five-gigawatt cloud computing arrangement — a reminder that $75 million, while a lot of money to most people, is a comparatively modest line item for Alphabet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Google now own part of A24?
Google holds an equity stake through its roughly $75 million investment, marking Alphabet's first-ever financial stake in a film studio. It's a minority investment tied to a research partnership, not a controlling acquisition.
Will Google get access to A24's movies to train its AI?
No. Multiple reports confirm the deal explicitly excludes A24's content library and data. The partnership is structured around joint tool development, not content licensing or AI training data.
What will the Google DeepMind and A24 partnership actually build?
The first confirmed project is AI-assisted storyboarding tools. Broader goals are described as evolving over time, with no fixed production output required.
Are A24 filmmakers okay with this?
Not universally. Director Kane Parsons, whose film "Backrooms" became one of A24's biggest hits, has publicly criticized generative AI's growing role in filmmaking. The deal reflects a decision by A24's business and technology leadership, not unanimous support across its filmmaker roster.
How does this compare to Disney's deal with OpenAI?
Disney's arrangement with OpenAI involved licensing its characters and collapsed within months, while Disney separately pursued copyright litigation against other AI companies. A24's deal is structured differently — research-focused, with no IP or character licensing involved.
Last updated: June 23, 2026. Reporting in this article draws on coverage from The Wall Street Journal, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, TechCrunch, and IndieWire, along with statements from Google DeepMind's official announcement.
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