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Not on the evidence currently public. Lionsgate’s partnership with Runway puts AI into pre-visualization, storyboarding, VFX-related production and final-frame work, but neither company has announced a plan to eliminate storyboard or VFX positions. The public record shows an expanding production capability and unresolved labor risk—not measured job replacement.
What Lionsgate and Runway actually announced
On September 18, 2024, Lionsgate and Runway announced a partnership to create and train a generative-video model customized to Lionsgate’s film and television content. Runway said the model would generate cinematic video and support iterative work with its controllable tools.
Lionsgate Vice Chair Michael Burns described the intended role as “augmenting, enhancing and supplementing” current operations. Runway co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela likewise described tools intended to augment artists’, creators’ and studios’ workflows.
That announcement did not name storyboard artists or VFX artists for elimination, publish a head-count target, or disclose employment effects.
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The 2026 expansion
On June 11, 2026, Runway announced that Lionsgate had taken an equity interest in the company. The parties said they would jointly develop new intellectual property, beginning with a short-form episodic series using Lionsgate intellectual property and Runway models.
The announcement said tools from the 2024 partnership were being used across pre-visualization, storyboarding and final-frame production. It did not report completed output, adoption rates, production savings or changes in employment.
Why storyboard and VFX artists are directly in the conversation
Storyboarding and VFX are not incidental to these announcements. Pre-visualization and storyboarding can involve generating and revising shots before filming; final-frame production concerns imagery that may appear in the finished work. Those are parts of the creative pipeline in which generative video could alter who performs particular tasks, how many iterations are commissioned and how much work is sent to outside vendors.
That possibility is different from proof that a studio has replaced a profession. A tool can reduce time spent on a task, shift work to another department, create new review and cleanup work, or remain unsuitable for a particular production.
What the public record establishes—and what it does not
| Question | What is established | What remains unknown |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Lionsgate and Runway publicly describe AI as an augmentation or creative resource. | How individual productions will balance AI-generated material and human-created work. |
| Workflows | The 2026 announcement names pre-visualization, storyboarding and final-frame production. | Which tasks, credits, vendors or departments will change on a production-by-production basis. |
| Model training | Lionsgate describes a library of more than 20,000 film and television titles. | The exact training-title list and the rights-clearance schedule. The Los Angeles Times reported in October 2024, citing a person familiar with the deal, that a small number of titles would be used. |
| Commercial terms | The Los Angeles Times reported that no money exchanged hands, while noting that the companies declined to comment on financial terms. | The complete agreement, access controls, compensation arrangements and other contract terms. |
| Exclusivity | TheWrap reported in September 2025 that Lionsgate said the deal was not exclusive and that the studio planned to use Runway and other AI vendors. | How often each vendor is used and whether a specific tool changes staffing on a specific show or film. |
| Employment impact | No source reviewed reports a partnership-specific total of jobs lost or created. | Any verified change in storyboard, VFX or related employment attributable to this deal. |
Technical and rights constraints could limit substitution
TheWrap reported in 2025 on early technical and rights complications, including concerns that one bespoke model and the available catalog might not support ambitious film-scale uses. The report also described copyright and performer-rights questions and quoted an entertainment attorney about the complexity of film and television rights.
Those accounts are reported, attributed concerns rather than a company-published technical audit. They nevertheless matter to the jobs question: a system that cannot reliably preserve continuity, follow detailed direction, clear rights or protect performer interests may add supervision, legal review, compositing and revision rather than remove them.
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Lionsgate’s current Director, Creative AI & Production Technology job description calls for artist-facing tools, pilots validated with artists and production teams, and workflows spanning creative development, VFX, production, editorial and post-production. It says success includes improving quality, speed or creative possibility without disrupting essential craft and approval processes. A job posting demonstrates investment in internal AI capability; it does not prove that existing positions are protected, eliminated or replaced.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsSo, will AI replace storyboard or VFX artists?
The most accurate answer is: the deal could change parts of their work, but replacement has not been demonstrated.
What could be automated or compressed
- Rapid visual exploration during early concept and pre-visualization work.
- Some rough storyboard frames, camera experiments or reference imagery.
- Selected shots or iterations that previously required external artists, provided quality and rights requirements are met.
What still requires human responsibility
- Interpreting a script, designing a coherent visual language and making story-driven choices.
- Maintaining continuity, character performance, timing, spatial logic and shot-to-shot intent.
- Building, simulating, compositing and revising complex effects to a director’s and studio’s specifications.
- Obtaining permissions, tracking provenance, protecting performer rights and approving final work.
- Communicating with directors, cinematographers, editors, producers and other departments.
Generative systems may eventually perform more of the first group. The public announcements do not establish how much of either group is handled by AI on Lionsgate productions.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to judge claims about this partnership
- Separate capability from staffing. A statement that a tool can create video or final frames is not evidence that a job has disappeared.
- Look for production-level evidence. The meaningful evidence would be credits, commissions, hours, vendor contracts or staffing data tied to productions using the tool.
- Check rights and consent. Training data, performer likenesses, music, scripts and other protected material can determine whether an output is usable.
- Watch for task transfer. Fewer storyboard pages may coincide with more prompting, curation, cleanup, continuity checking or legal review.
- Keep company statements attributed. Runway’s description of AI as a creative resource is its position, not independent proof that studios are avoiding cost reductions.
What would demonstrate real employment effects?
Reliable conclusions would require production-specific records: which shows or films used the system, which tasks were assigned to it, how many paid artist commissions changed, what credits and compensation were provided, and whether staffing, hours or vendor spending changed. Company-wide staffing movements or the size of Lionsgate’s overall library cannot answer those questions.
Until that evidence appears, the strongest defensible description is that Lionsgate is building and testing AI capacity in workflows that include storyboarding and final-frame work. The partnership creates a plausible substitution risk, but the scale and direction of its effect on artists remain unresolved.
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