‘Dream Warriors’ Director Chuck Russell Embracing AI on Sci-Fi Features: ‘Hyperia’ and ‘b’

Chuck Russell, the celebrated filmmaker behind everything from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors to The Mask, Eraser, and The Blob, is embracing AI with his new company, Neumorphic AI, and is set to direct two original sci-fi features built around generative AI.

Variety reports that Russell’s Neumorphic AI has entered into a production partnership with the generative video platform Higgsfield.

The projects, Hyperia and b, will deploy AI tools from worldbuilding and creature design through to VFX, editing and post, while live actors shoot on LED volumes with AI-generated environments built around them, writes the site.

Hyperia centers on a fugitive thrown into a punishing hover-sled race on an extraterrestrial world governed by a rogue AI.

b revisits a project that drew industry attention as the first feature to cast a humanoid robot in a leading role.

That robot, Erica, was developed at the University of Osaka, and her creator, Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, returns to the new production as android supervisor.

Elena Kaya serves as generative AI supervisor, with Anoush Sadegh as executive producer.

The story tracks a sentient digital life form — the first of her kind — after she escapes her creator’s lab, triggering an international race to retrieve her before military contractors intervene.

“AI technologies are expanding the cinematic toolbox to a scale we’ve never had before,” said Russell.

“Bringing actors, directors, cinematographers, VFX artists, robotics and AI systems all working together within one creative pipeline.”

“Partnering with a filmmaker of Chuck Russell’s calibre and the team at Neumorphic AI moves AI out of the demo reel and into the heart of the feature-film pipeline,” added Higgsfield co-founder and CEO Alex Mashrabov.

“AI only matters in film if it survives the real production process: continuity, lighting, camera language, performance, editability and creative control,” said Geisler.

“Our job is to bring these technologies into a professional workflow that directors, actors, cinematographers and VFX teams can actually use on a working set.”