On Friday, Fable, a startup, revealed an intriguing and somewhat puzzling initiative to recreate the missing 43 minutes from Orson Welles’ iconic film “The Magnificent Ambersons.”
Why would a company, branding itself as the “Netflix of AI” and recently securing investment from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, be interested in reviving a film that originally debuted in 1942?
The answer is that Fable has developed a platform where users can generate animated content using AI prompts. At present, Fable is using its own original works but intends to eventually let users work with Hollywood properties as well. In fact, the platform has already been used to create unofficial “South Park” episodes.
Fable is now introducing an AI model that it claims is capable of producing lengthy, intricate stories. Over the coming two years, filmmaker Brian Rose—who has already spent half a decade trying to digitally reconstruct Welles’ intended film—plans to utilize this tool to recreate the lost portions of “The Magnificent Ambersons.”
Interestingly, Fable doesn’t possess the legal rights to the movie, making this project more of a technological showcase that will likely never see a public release.
But why choose “Ambersons”? Unless you’re a die-hard fan of Welles, this might seem like an odd candidate for digital revival.
Even among enthusiasts of classic cinema, Welles’ second feature is often eclipsed by his more celebrated debut. “Citizen Kane” is frequently hailed as the greatest film ever made, while “Ambersons” is renowned as a lost treasure, drastically altered by the studio, shortened, and given an artificial happy ending against the director’s wishes.
The film’s legacy—the lingering sense of missed opportunity—is likely what attracted Fable and Rose in the first place. Still, it’s important to note that our enduring fascination with “The Magnificent Ambersons” stems from Welles himself: its impact on his Hollywood trajectory and, even in its compromised form, the brilliance his direction still conveys.
That context makes it all the more surprising that Fable reportedly never contacted Welles’ estate. David Reeder, who represents Welles’ daughter Beatrice, told Variety the project was “an attempt to drum up attention by capitalizing on Welles’ creative legacy,” calling it “a purely mechanical exercise devoid of the kind of innovative thinking that defined Welles as an artist.”
Despite his critique, Reeder appears less troubled by the idea of reconstructing “Ambersons” than by the fact that the estate wasn’t “even given the courtesy of a heads up.” As he points out, “the estate has adopted AI technology to develop a voice model for use in branded voiceover work.”
Personally, I’m not as receptive. Even if Welles’ family were consulted and compensated, the prospect of a new “Ambersons” holds no appeal for me—just as I’m uninterested in hearing a digital imitation of Welles’s legendary voice promoting products.
Of course, fans of Welles know that attempts to complete or restore his films after his death are not new. At least, those efforts relied on original footage Welles had shot. In contrast, Fable plans a mixture of AI and conventional filmmaking—some scenes will be recreated with present-day actors whose faces are digitally replaced with likenesses of the original cast.
Though the idea of launching such an endeavor without proper rights or approval from Welles’ daughter seems questionable, Rose’s motivation appears sincere in wanting to pay tribute to Welles’ vision. For instance, Rose has expressed regret over the loss of “a four-minute-long, continuous moving camera shot—a tragedy,” with only a 50-second fragment surviving in the recut version.
I empathize with his sense of loss—but I do not believe that this is something AI can restore.
However successfully Fable and Rose manage to recreate that iconic tracking shot, it will still be their creation—not Welles’. It will feature digitally recreated versions of Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead, not the actors themselves. Their finished product will never be the version of “The Magnificent Ambersons” that RKO destroyed over eight decades ago. Unless the lost footage is miraculously found, that original is gone for good.
