How film producer Edward Saatchi is using AI to recreate the lost ending of an Orson Welles masterpiece

InvestigationFascinated by Orson Welles's 'The Magnificent Ambersons,' whose ending was altered by the studio, the British entrepreneur wants to resurrect the lost version using artificial intelligence. It is both an ambitious and controversial project.

Edward Saatchi perfectly remembered the first time he saw the 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons by Orson Welles. It was during one of those regular private screenings where, surrounded by his two parents and his half-brother, he discovered the great classics of cinema. He also recalled that the pleasure his 11-year-old self took in following the story of this family of Midwestern American aristocrats was tinged with a certain unease.

"Every evening, watching a movie, dissecting it, talking about it the next day, that was the life for us. [...] Orson Welles was certainly a hero in the household. And what happened to him was thought of as a great betrayal," Saatchi explained. The injustice in question: His second film after Citizen Kane (1941) was butchered by his producer, RKO. A new version was forced on the filmmaker, turning the sweeping tragic epic he had dreamed of into a romantic comedy with a bland Hollywood happy ending. And as misfortune rarely comes alone, the reels of the original cut were lost and likely destroyed.

On this July day, Saatchi arranged to meet at Balthazar, a trendy and noisy French brasserie in New York's Soho neighborhood. The 41-year-old British usually lives in San Francisco, where he runs the start-up Fable, a pioneer in artificial intelligence filmmaking. He was spending this summer on the East Coast preparing for the October 30 US theatrical release of God Don't Give Gifts, a film he produced and whose images were entirely generated by AI.

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