Korea's AI features mostly aren't coming from its star directors

What The Arc's $38,000 AI credit bill leaves out

The Arc's makers say the five-episode AI series used about $38,000 in credits. Artlist supplied and valued them at an undisclosed rate, and none of the crew's wages are in the figure.

Five episodes, about 83 minutes, and roughly $38,000 in AI credits. That is the bill director Darin Stewart and executive producer Simone Ferretti gave Business Insider on Oct 11 for The Arc, a sci-fi series about death row inmates sent into historical simulations, made mostly with Seedance and Kling and no human actors.

The figure comes with conditions. Artlist supplied the credits, put its own value on them, and commissioned, hosts and markets the show, and Ferretti has worked with Artlist for three years. Nobody has said what rate turned those credits into dollars. The figure also carries no wages, since Stewart told Business Insider that "everyone on our team got paid their full day rates the same way they would on set." Two weeks earlier, on stage at AI Creator Day, he put the show at "$15,000 in Seedance credits," and the two totals have never been squared.

Divided by the runtime, it comes to about $460 of credits per finished minute, by our math. The much-quoted "8 to 10 generations per shot" is softer than it sounds: Stewart said one shot could require that many, which describes the hard end, not an average. The team kept costs down by drafting at low resolution and redoing only the keepers at full quality, and from episode three they split scripts into page blocks made in parallel.

What nobody has published is the generation log or the credit rate. Artlist green-lit two more series from the same team, so the next one could bring the first AI production budget anyone can check line by line.

Full story, with the cost table, via the

Sources: Business Insider, Oct 11, 2026; What's Trending and TheWrap on the Sept 29 AI Creator Day panel; Artlist.

Read the full article: thegenerated.com/stories/artlist-the-arc-ai-credits-cost-per-minute-20261019

Collage will vet AI studios for Hollywood, and one backer already sells a client's film

Ex-UTA agent Dante DeSario's Collage will manage, price and invest in AI studios. Its client roster is unconfirmed by the studios, and AGC Studios, one of its backers, sells client Native Foreign's Critterz.

Dante DeSario spent years at UTA packaging independent films. On Monday he and media investor Michael Lambert launched Collage, a company that will manage AI-native studios, vet and price their work for Hollywood buyers, and invest in some of them along the way. DeSario told Variety he wants to show buyers which studios make human-led work and "who to stay away from."

That pitch rests on trust, so the backer list matters. AGC Studios, named among Collage's investors and advisors, is also the worldwide sales company on Critterz, the feature from Collage client Native Foreign. Overlapping investors are normal at seed stage, and nobody has alleged anything improper. But a broker that vets suppliers is only as useful as its disclosures, and Collage has not said how much it raised or which studios it has already invested in.

The client list is softer than the launch suggests. The company statement Deadline ran names eight clients, while Variety's interview names four of them: Asteria, Native Foreign, Obsidian and Secret Level. As of Tuesday morning, none had announced Collage on its own site or X account, and nobody has said whether being a client means a commission, a retainer or equity.

Collage signs studios with staff and funding, not solo makers. What it changes for everyone else is the question buyers ask, which moves from whether AI is allowed to which AI shop they can trust.

Sources: Variety and Deadline, Oct 19, 2026.

Read the full article: thegenerated.com/stories/collage-ai-studios-management-desario-20261020