‘Mask’ and ‘Eraser’ Director Chuck Russell, Higgsfield Team for AI-Driven Sci-Fi Features ‘Hyperia’ and ‘b’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Two original sci-fi features built around generative AI across their entire production pipeline have been unveiled at the Cannes Film Market, as filmmaker Chuck Russell and his company Neumorphic AI set a production partnership with generative video platform Higgsfield.

The projects, “Hyperia” and “b,” will deploy AI tools 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.

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“Hyperia” centers on a fugitive thrown into a punishing hover-sled race on an extraterrestrial world governed by a rogue AI. “b” revisits a project that drew 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. Elena Kaya serves as generative AI supervisor, with Anoush Sadegh as executive producer. 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.

Neumorphic AI was co-founded by Russell – whose credits include “The Mask,” “Eraser,” “The Scorpion King” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” with a combined global box office of more than $1 billion – alongside VFX supervisor Erick Geisler, a two-time Emmy winner, and AI scientist Sam Khoze.

Higgsfield’s toolset for the productions spans the Soul 2.0 image model for character generation, Cinema Studio 3.5 for cinematic video, and Seedance for motion, along with in-house upscaling and skin-enhancement technology. Neumorphic AI’s VFX studio handles final texture and skin refinement.

“AI technologies are expanding the cinematic toolbox to a scale we’ve never had before,” said Russell. “Bringing actors, directors, cinematographers, VFX artists, robotics and AI systems all working together within one creative pipeline.”

“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,” added Higgsfield co-founder and CEO Alex Mashrabov.

“AI only matters in film if it survives the real production process: continuity, lighting, camera language, performance, editability and creative control,” said Geisler. “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.”

“Hyperia and b are not films with AI inside them,” added Khoze. “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.”

Higgsfield is also screening its own AI-native project “Hell Grind” at Cannes on May 21.