Fountain 0 Announces the Release of Odysseus: the Fall, the First Completely AI Generated Film Produced at the Level of a Hollywood Blockbuster

Fountain 0's Ash Koosha, creator of the first completely AI generated film to be accepted at a major film festival, is the creator/writer/director of Odysseus

NEW YORK & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fountain 0, the leading AI movie studio, announced today that it will soon be releasing its second film that is totally AI generated. The film is Odysseus: The Fall, a version of Homer's Odyssey that approaches the multi-dimensional story in all its depth and epic glory. Odysseus runs 135 minutes and the trailer is being released today and can be seen on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c75yg7_zLRE

Fountain 0 is the studio that created the first full length, live action film accepted by a major film festival with the world premiere of Dreams of Violets at the Tribeca Film Festival last month. The movie was very well received for both the quality of the production, and the fact that the subject matter could never have been captured in a film or made so close in time to the real events it dramatized, without having been generated by AI.

The Odyssey is the most famous story of a journey in all of literature. Odysseus: The Fall relates the story on Homer’s terms – a broken man remembering a life that cost him everything. It chronicles a man who could become anyone, undone by the one thing he could not do, which was stay a nobody.

Ash Koosha, the writer/director/producer of Dreams of Violets once again was the sole creator of this film, along with being co-founder of Fountain 0. This project was also produced for an extremely small sum (mostly a small expense related to cloud token credits). This film also involved only part-time work by Ash over the course of three months. While every scene and image in the film is AI generated, all the writing and creative development of the film was the work of Ash just as in the Dreams of Violets film.

Ash Koosha stated, "I have always felt passionately about Homer's epic tale since I originally read it years ago. The supernatural challenges Odysseus faced, and the chronicling of his heroics and his failings as a person, long ago captured my imagination. But being able to bring that story to life in my own vision while literally putting myself in Odysseus' shoes was a creative opportunity of a lifetime." Ash's own image and likeness are used to take on the role of Odysseus in the film.

Pooya Koosha, producer and post-producer of the film, and co-founder of Fountain 0, stated: "The proprietary video production software we created, to refine and elevate the film's video imaging, is what enables the film to rise to the level of human production, and is the central technology "secret sauce" of this film's quality. However, the core video AI model on top of which our software is built is absolutely critical to the high-quality look and feel of the film. We cannot offer enough praise for the AI model, Kling, which is what we used to develop the image rendering of every scene. We are finding through experimentation with each film that we are creating new tools and techniques enabling us to overcome challenges that put our filmmaking at the ultimate cutting edge of how an AI movie can be created at the same level of any human production.” The likeness of Pooya is used for the character Eurylochus.

Tom Rogers, Executive Chairman of Fountain 0, and executive producer of the film, stated: "Many will ask with a major Hollywood release of another take on the classic Homer story, why make this particular film now? First, there are so very, very few who have access to the hundreds of millions of dollars to produce a movie through traditional means to tell a story as vast and difficult as one that does justice to the original Odyssey, and we wanted to demonstrate that even filmmaking at this level could be fully democratized by AI. Second, we wanted to provide a basis of comparison in the same time frame with a movie coming from one of the world's most revered directors, so moviegoers might be curious enough to see both films developed out of the same classic tale as a way to better understand the level at which AI is able to both contribute already to the art of filmmaking, and to increasing the number of quality films that can be offered to the public." Tom's image is used to bring the character of Mentor to the screen.

Ash further explained, "We very much hope that Christopher Nolan's film, The Odyssey, is a raging success at the box office, and in some way that our version of the journey of Odysseus might further that success by bringing to theatres those who might not otherwise come out to see the film, simply because they are curious to see the ultimate in human creation and compare it to one man's collaboration with AI. One of the real benefits of AI will be to allow the rapid release of multiple interpretations and versions of literary works, viewpoints on events, and other topics which are trending high in public discourse in the immediate timeframe.”

“One very important aspect of this film is that it is taking the image and likeness of real people to use as characters in the film, and with that developing the kind of license agreements that we believe will become commonplace as a way of incorporating the images of real people in films,” Ash explained. “Figuring out how to make sure human beings are both able to offer their likenesses to a film while protecting their commercial and privacy rights will be a critical element of Fountain 0’s future film development.”

Pooya further stated, "We do worry about all those employed in the film industry today who are not writers and directors - those who will provide the critical creativity that will continue to fuel great movie making as more AI production takes hold. We do believe some will find roles in the AI technology sector as its place in video creation increases, but much more attention must be devoted to those whose roles may become obsolete."

Tom went on to say, “With the state of AI video generation still being quite nascent, we expect much feedback that the Nolan film is a superior adaptation of this great epic adventure. There will be a multitude of views on Odysseus, and we hope to stimulate a broad conversation on not only the great artistry that Ash has brought to this film, but the many implications it has for the future of film making.

Fountain 0 is exploring developing new means of efficient film distribution where films that are produced quickly to take advantage of the public consciousness surrounding news and cultural events, can also be distributed to the public rapidly as well. Both Odysseus and Dreams of Violets will be available for viewers to stream by going to Fountain0.com. Each film will be available for rental at a price of $9.99. Dreams of Violets will be available to stream on July 17^th, and Odysseus will be available later this summer.