Roger Avary Tapped to Direct AI-Assisted Paradise Lost
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- Roger Avary, Oscar-winning Pulp Fiction co-writer and Rules of Attraction director, is attached to write and direct the adaptation, marking his return to epic-poem territory after co-scripting Robert Zemeckis' 2007 Beowulf for Paramount.
- Ex Machina Studios, an emerging AI-oriented production company, will produce the project through its proprietary generative-AI pipeline, which the team says allows 'expansive worlds to be realized at a responsible budget while preserving the primacy of real actors, human-authored narratives, and guild-aligned production practices.'
- Marco Weber (Igby Goes Down), Ex Machina's co-founder and CEO, is producing, with veteran production designer Kirk Petruccelli (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) executive producing; K5 International is launching world sales at Cannes.
- The team explicitly framed the AI tooling as a way to crack a project that has defeated previous adapters, including a high-profile Alex Proyas–Warner Bros. version that had Bradley Cooper attached before being shelved.
- Cast and start dates are unset, but the producers say the budget remains 'ambitious for an indie project'; Avary's last directorial outing was 2019's Lucky Day with Nina Dobrev.
- Weber's Ex Machina slate also includes Proyas' Heaven, Cortés, and Space Nation, making Paradise Lost the centerpiece of a line-up built around the same generative-AI production model.
Why it matters: Milton's 1667 poem has thwarted every prior attempt to adapt it as a feature, including a star-driven Warner Bros. version that died on the page; Ex Machina is now betting that generative AI is the missing variable, and using Paradise Lost as the flagship for a slate (also including Proyas projects) built around the same cost-compression pitch. If it works, it resets what's producible in the indie-epic tier — and the 'guild-aligned production practices' language is a direct signal that they know the AI-in-craft backlash is the real obstacle.
