The studio behind John Wick and The Hunger Games is deepening its 2024 deal with the AI video company — moving from quietly testing tools to co-developing AI-made content.
2026-06-26 · by Moe Ameen
On June 11, 2026, Runway and Lionsgate announced an expansion of the partnership the two companies first struck in September 2024. According to Runway's own announcement and reporting from Variety and The Wrap, Lionsgate has taken an equity interest in Runway — described as not a cash investment — and the two are launching a joint development program to create new content, and new intellectual property, using AI. The first stated project is a short-form episodic series that draws on some of Lionsgate's existing IP and Runway's generative models. The companies also said they will run a series of filmmaker-focused events, and Lionsgate is a presenting partner at Runway's AI Festival in June.
Lionsgate declined to specify which franchises will feed the AI series, though its library spans thousands of titles including John Wick, The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Saw. Financial terms were not disclosed. The expanded effort sits under Lionsgate's Chief AI Officer Kathleen Grace, hired in early 2026, and the studio's AI Steering Committee; Vice Chairman Michael Burns has championed the Runway relationship since the original deal. Runway co-founder and co-CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela framed the move as a step from filmmakers experimenting with tools toward studios building AI-made content directly.
It is worth recalling how the first phase went. The 2024 deal centered on Runway training a custom model on Lionsgate's proprietary catalog, aimed at augmenting pre-production and post-production. By late 2025, reporting indicated that approach had hit a wall: a single studio's library — even one with 20,000-plus titles — is too small to train a model capable of large-scale production-quality generation. The 2026 expansion reads less like "a custom Lionsgate model" and more like Lionsgate using Runway's general models plus its own IP to develop short-form content, while continuing to use other AI tools elsewhere.
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On June 11, 2026, the two expanded their 2024 partnership. Lionsgate took an equity interest in Runway and the companies launched a joint development program to create new IP using AI, starting with a short-form episodic series drawing on Lionsgate IP and Runway's generative models. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Lionsgate did not specify. Its catalog spans thousands of titles including John Wick, The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Saw, but the company declined to confirm which IP feeds the AI short-form series.
Reporting in late 2025 indicated the original plan — a Runway model trained solely on Lionsgate's catalog — was insufficient on its own, because a single studio's library is too small to train a production-grade generative model. The 2026 expansion leans on Runway's general models plus Lionsgate IP rather than a single bespoke model.
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