Dune VFX house DNEG Group and its Brahma division have made a big swing in acquiring Metaphysic, a developer of artificial intelligence content creation technologies.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement includes Abu Dhabi-based investor United Al Saqer Group and the DNEG Group investing another $25 million into Brahma, an AI and content technologies company launched by DNEG Group. In addition, Thomas Graham, CEO of Metaphysic and president of Brahma, will become CEO of Brahma when the transaction is completed.

“Brahma offers every business a strategy for generative AI content creation, from owning their data to delivering amazing, user-customized AI content across video, image, and audio,” Graham said in a statement on Tuesday about the acquisition deal for his company. In 2023, Metaphysic gained headlines for popularizing a deepfake TikTok account spoofing Tom Cruise.

The tech firm has also seen its generative AI-driven tool dubbed Metaphysic Live used to de-age in real time Hollywood actors on screen, as when Tom Hanks and Robin Wright were made to look younger in Robert Zemeckis’ Miramax movie Here using the face replacement technology. Metaphysic has also brought its AI digital likenesses tools to other Hollywood projects like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Alien: Romulus.

As the debate in Hollywood surrounding the ethics and legal questions of using AI and tech in digital content creation has only grown, the acquisition of Metaphysic aims to accelerate Brahma’s push into AI products to create photorealistic video, images and audio for Hollywood-grade content. Post-transaction, Brahma said it will be valued at $1.43 billion.

As hyperreal AI continues to disrupt and shape the future of entertainment, in July 2024, DNEG, the London-headquartered visual effects and animation house that has won Oscars for the likes of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and Netflix’s Stranger Things, said it had secured a $200 million investment from the Abu Dhabi-based United Al Saqar Group to bolster its push into AI innovation.

Metaphysic investors, including cryptocurrency moguls Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and YouTuber Logan Paul, Liberty Global and the venture capital fund S32, will be able to become shareholders in Brahma.  

“With Brahma, we are taking DNEG’s multiple Academy Award-winning visual effects and animation toolsets and marrying them with the incredible power of generative AI to create a suite of AI content products, including what we believe will be the industry’s leading photorealistic AI video creator,” Prabhu Narasimhan, executive chairman of Brahma, said in a statement on Tuesday. “I am excited to take Brahma from a niche user base focused on high-end movie and TV production to enterprise and content creators across every industry. If you have the imagination and a story to tell, we have the tools to bring your story to life faster, cheaper, and better,” he added.

In a push towards AI-driven Hollywood content production that makes once cost-prohibitive VFX affordable, DNEG Group will get deeper into creating digital human and character simulations. Namit Malhotra, founder and CEO of the DNEG Group and interim CEO of Brahma, in his own statement said the acquisition of Metaphysic will allow the production of “incredible content at a scale and fidelity that is currently reserved only for those with the highest budgets. Brahma will redefine how stories are told, through a platform that is purpose-built for the future of content creation.”