ByteDance AI films shake up Cannes as TikTok owner challenges Hollywood norms

Films generated by ByteDance’s AI technology made headlines at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, as the TikTok owner accelerates efforts to commercialise its flagship Seedance 2.0 model.

Two short films, The Golden Tomb Seeker and Series Tower, created by Chinese platform Chushou AI using Seedance 2.0, were among 21 works selected from more than 1,000 submissions spanning 120 countries at Marché du Film, the business hub of the festival.

But what drew most industry attention was Hell Grind, a 95-minute action-fantasy film made by Seedance 2.0. Billed as the world’s first feature-length film fully generated by artificial intelligence, the movie – though not an official selection – premiered at an AI film summit last week in Cannes city on the sidelines of the main festival.

The project was produced by US-based AI video platform Higgsfield AI using Seedance 2.0 and was completed by a 15-person team in two weeks.

Total production costs for Hell Grind were less than US$500,000, including roughly US$400,000 in compute costs, according to figures disclosed by Higgsfield during the summit – far below the multimillion-dollar budgets typically associated with feature-length productions.

Alex Mashrabov, co-founder and CEO of Higgsfield, was quoted as saying that a comparable traditionally produced film would typically cost about US$50 million.