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Filmmaker Chuck Russell and Neumorphic AI Set Production Partnership with AI Platform HiggsfieldFilmmaker Chuck Russell and Neumorphic AI Set Production Partnership with AI Platform Higgsfield
Tue May 26 2026
Hollywood director Chuck Russell partners with AI video platform Higgsfield to produce two groundbreaking sci-fi films, Hyperia and b, blending generative AI, robotics, and Hollywood filmmaking into a new era of cinematic production.
Hollywood veteran Chuck Russell, the director behind blockbusters including The Mask, Eraser, The Scorpion King, and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, with a combined global box office exceeding $1 billion, has announced a landmark production partnership with AI video platform Higgsfield. The deal, unveiled exclusively at the Cannes Film Market on May 16, 2026, brings together Russell's company Neumorphic AI and Higgsfield to produce two original AI-driven sci-fi feature films: Hyperia and b.
The announcement signals a significant moment in the evolution of AI cinema, not a hobbyist experiment, but a fully professional feature-film pipeline built around generative AI tools, veteran Hollywood craft, and cutting-edge robotics.
The Projects: Hyperia and b
Hyperia centres on a fugitive thrown into a punishing hover-sled race on an extraterrestrial world governed by a rogue AI, a high-concept action premise that lends itself to the kind of expansive world-building that Higgsfield's generative tools are designed to support.
b revisits a project that previously drew significant 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. 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. Elena Kaya serves as generative AI supervisor, with Anoush Sadegh as executive producer.
Both films will deploy AI tools across the entire production pipeline, 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.
The Technology Stack
Higgsfield's toolset for the productions spans its Soul 2.0 image model for character generation, Cinema Studio 3.5 for cinematic video production, and Seedance for motion, along with in-house upscaling and skin-enhancement technology. Neumorphic AI's VFX studio handles final texture and skin refinement.
Neumorphic AI was co-founded by Russell alongside VFX supervisor Erick Geisler – a two-time Emmy winner and AI scientist Sam Khoze, bringing together decades of Hollywood production experience with deep technical expertise in visual effects and artificial intelligence.
What the Creative Team Is Saying
The partnership has drawn candid and expansive statements from all sides, reflecting a genuine belief that this moment represents a structural shift in how films can be made.
Chuck Russell framed it as an expansion of the filmmaker's toolkit: "AI technologies are expanding the cinematic toolbox to a scale we've never had before. Bringing actors, directors, cinematographers, VFX artists, robotics and AI systems all working together within one creative pipeline."
Higgsfield CEO Alex Mashrabov emphasised the significance of partnering with established Hollywood talent:
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.
Erick Geisler spoke to the challenge of making AI genuinely usable in a professional production environment:
AI only matters in film if it survives the real production process: continuity, lighting, camera language, performance, editability and creative control. 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.
And Sam Khoze offered perhaps the most philosophical perspective:
Hyperia and b are not films with AI inside them. They are films born from a synthesis of human imagination, robotics and machine cognition. We are returning to a frontier we helped open, with the tools finally catching up to the vision.
Cannes as a Stage for AI Cinema
The announcement came the same week Higgsfield unveiled Hell Grind at Cannes, the first feature film produced entirely on its platform, screened at Cinema Olympia on May 21. The back-to-back announcements positioned Higgsfield as the most active AI platform at this year's festival, operating across both fully AI-generated production and hybrid human-AI feature filmmaking.
Notably, Chuck Russell himself had reviewed early Hell Grind footage ahead of the partnership announcement and was moved by what he saw: "You made me care about your characters, something I almost never see in AI," he said, a remark that speaks volumes about how far the technology has come, and why a filmmaker of his calibre chose to align with Higgsfield at this moment.
Why This Partnership Matters
For the film industry, the Neumorphic AI–Higgsfield partnership represents something distinct from the wave of AI experiments that have circulated in recent years. This is a collaboration between an experienced Hollywood director with a proven commercial track record, a two-time Emmy-winning VFX supervisor, and one of the most well-capitalised AI video platforms in the world, now valued at over $1.3 billion following its January 2026 funding round.
The result is a production model that takes AI seriously as a professional tool rather than a novelty: one where human creative vision, performance, and craft remain central, and AI expands what is possible within the budget and timeline constraints that have historically limited ambitious independent filmmaking.
As the Cannes Film Market continues to evolve into a proving ground for AI cinema, Hyperia and b are ones to watch.
Sources
- Variety (Exclusive) — 'Mask' and 'Eraser' Director Chuck Russell, Higgsfield Team for AI-Driven Sci-Fi Features 'Hyperia' and 'b': https://variety.com/2026/film/markets-festivals/chuck-russell-ai-scifi-films-1236750678/
- FilmFestivals.com — History-Making AI Feature Film Hell Grind to be Screened During Cannes Film Festival: https://www.filmfestivals.us/blog/cannes/history_making_ai_feature_film_hell_grind_to_be_screened_during_cannes_film_festival_created_entirely_on_the
- Screen Daily — Higgsfield Unveils Fully AI-Generated Feature 'Hell Grind' in Cannes: https://www.screendaily.com/news/in-pictures-higgsfield-unveils-fully-ai-generated-feature-hell-grind-in-cannes/5216871.article
- Reuters — AI Video Startup Higgsfield Hits $1.3 Billion Valuation with Latest Funding: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ai-video-startup-higgsfield-hits-13-billion-valuation-with-latest-funding-2026-01-15/
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Sara Srifi
Sara is a Software Engineering and Business student with a passion for astronomy, cultural studies, and human-centered storytelling. She explores the quiet intersections between science, identity, and imagination, reflecting on how space, art, and society shape the way we understand ourselves and the world around us. Her writing draws on curiosity and lived experience to bridge disciplines and spark dialogue across cultures.
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