Can AI tell if your script will make a hit film?

When Quilty hit the industry trades earlier this year, the AI startup promised that its tool could accurately predict a film’s success just by reading the script. When people actually got a chance to experiment with Quilty’s product, though, they were left skeptical. Even with all the available data in the world, it predicted the script for Christy , which would go on to be a box office flop, would outperform the script for Sinners , which became an Oscar-winning blockbuster. As many AI execs have pitched before, Quilty’s founders believe that can help “democratize” their industry by giving up-and-coming creatives access to assistive tools — a great Quilty score, perhaps, could be an in with a producer, and a low score might be a sign more revisions are needed. But right now, Quilty is little more than a jumbled mishmash of preexisting AI systems, and the company has yet to prove out that its technology has the taste or analytical abilities to identify a future hit (let alone a proven one). Founded by film producers Simon Horsman and Daniel Wood , Quilty uses AI to analyze scripts and generate detailed reports about a project’s chances for success. After being fed an unproduced script, Quilty’s tech gives it a score ranging from 0 to 100 that reflects the quality of the would-be project’s narrative, its commercial viability, whether it will resonate with audiences, and how much the production would likely cost. …