Would you want to make your own TV show using AI?
Fable Studio, an Emmy-winning startup, is betting the answer is “yes.” The company just raised undisclosed funding from Amazon for Showrunner, its AI streaming platform.
The platform is slated to open to all users on Thursday. It lets subscribers — paying $10 to $40 per month for credits — create their own animated shows or build on others’ existing IP, by doing things like inserting themselves as characters into a show or adding a scene.
Fable was started in 2018 by veterans of the VR firm Oculus, which sold to Meta in 2014. Fable’s CEO, producer Edward Saatchi, started Showrunner in 2024 on the belief that AI could do much more for Hollywood than simply lowering the cost of filmed production. He thinks it can usher in more interactive forms of storytelling.
Fable got attention in 2023 for showing off its capabilities by releasing a deepfake version of “South Park.” Some praised the deepfake for pushing the boundaries of tech, but it also hit a nerve, coming when AI anxiety was running high during historic Hollywood strikes.
Saatchi said he believes approaches like his will create new jobs and benefit creators. If people make their own show on Showrunner, they’ll get a share of the revenue, around 40%, if another user builds on it. The revenue would be based on what people spend in credits to build on top of an existing show.
“That’s a very different, creator-first model, which we think will be very attractive to the AI creator community,” he said. “It also means that a show can get more and more attention as users create more episodes and scenes within a creator’s storyworld.”
One big question is whether Fable can get Hollywood studios to buy in.
Fable is pitching studios to put their IP on the platform so that people can also make derivative content off it. Saatchi’s pitch to studios is that if they put their IP on Showrunner, they’ll get a cut of the money people pay to play with their IP. They could also benefit from the buzz when people share their creations on social media.
Many major studios are using AI in their production to one degree or another, but few have gone public about it because of sensitivities about its threat to jobs and the creative process. Saatchi said Showrunner has one deal in place with an unnamed studio and is in talks with others, including Disney.
If a deal with Disney sounds far-fetched, Saatchi said legacy media companies are already getting more comfortable with two-way interaction with fans. He cited Disney’s 2024 investment in “Fortnite” maker Epic Games, which paved the way for people to interact with Disney characters and content in a gaming setting.
In the case of Disney, Saatchi said he imagined a model where people could enter an interactive “Star Wars” world through Disney+ and make their own characters, planets, and artistic elements, keeping within Disney’s creative guidelines.
Showrunner is also creating its own shows for users to experiment with. Its first big one is “Exit Valley,” which it describes as a “Family Guy”-style comedy that mocks AI tech leaders like Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Users can upload themselves and their friends as characters and add satirical episodes of their own.
Here are select slides from Showrunner’s deck that show how it’s pitching itself to Hollywood studios:
