Whether or not you feel artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced enough to be trusted with the development of a full-length animated feature film is entirely irrelevant. OpenAI is on a mission to prove to Hollywood that it, and AI as a whole, deserve a seat at the table. Meet Critterz, an AI-generated film from OpenAI’s Chad Nelson.
The press surrounding Critterz has more to do with how the movie was made, rather than the fact that the movie was being made at all, which should tell you all you need to know about its quality. Sure, it might not be the most hideous kids’ movie to be beamed into our eyeballs, but it does beg the question why we’re doing this at all — other than to serve Hollywood’s bottom line, of course.
Critterz headed right for the shi-
You might already be familiar with Critterz, which got its start as an AI-generated short film with funding from Sam Altman’s start-up and using the then-new Dall-E 2 technology to get it off the ground.
Now, OpenAI is lending its resources (and GPT-5) to the development of a feature-length Critterz film, which carries with it a budget of only $30 million. As much as regular folk may be against the idea, it’s obvious that kids do not care and will likely make Critterz a financial success. An easy feat, considering the relatively low budget when compared to a human-made film like Tangled, which reportedly cost around $260 million to make.
It’s easier to hide AI’s shortcomings inside an animated film, which will be seen primarily by kids and their tired parents — and can be touched up by real humans for a fraction of their regular salary. The plan is to have the film finished in a record time of nine months, far shorter than animated features typically take.
“OpenAI can say what its tools do all day long, but it’s much more impactful if someone does it,” Nelson said. “That’s a much better case study than me building a demo.”
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Critterz will, at the very least, assemble a couple of human writers as well as hire real human voice actors to give the film some personality, essentially leaving only the character design and animation to the robots. Production has reportedly begun, with the script in the hands of James Lamont and Jon Foster, who most recently penned the script for Paddington in Peru. All that’s missing is Chris Pratt to make this a surefire box office success.
While hiring real talent is a boon even for a production such as this, it’s possible that the use of human-drawn sketches, a human-written script, and human voice acting was only included to make the film viable for copyright — and not because it’s what the production wanted.
“The film is an animated science documentary turned comedy that introduces an unexplored forest inhabited by mysterious little Critterz with unforeseen personalities. The narrator takes viewers on an investigative journey into the isolated forest filled with never-before-seen Critterz when all of the sudden, the narrator is surprisingly interrupted by the Critterz themselves,” the film’s website reads. Either it’s lacking an editor, or even the blurb is making use of AI. Or both. Let’s stick with both.
The film, which is being produced by Vertigo Studios and Native Foreign, a studio that specialises in the use of AI-generated imagery, in addition to “traditional video-production tools.” The team expects the film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026 before eventually targeting a global theatrical release. It is unclear whether OpenAI will be involved in the movie’s marketing.
