Read my Lips: AI dubbing tech creates world’s first fully visual-dubbed film in US theaters

Flawless, a London-based AI company, has developed DeepEditor, a technology that creates realistic visual dubbing by manipulating actors’ facial movements to match foreign language dialogue. The technology was recently used to create the world’s first fully visually-dubbed feature film, Watch the Skies, which was released in 110 AMC theaters across the US, marking a potential breakthrough for international cinema distribution.

Why this matters: The global film dubbing market is projected to grow from $4 billion in 2024 to $7.6 billion by 2033, driven by streaming platforms seeking to expand international content reach to audiences resistant to traditional subtitles and dubbing.

How it works: DeepEditor uses advanced AI techniques to preserve actors’ original performances across languages without requiring reshoots or re-recordings.

• “DeepEditor uses a combination of face detection, facial recognition, landmark detection [such as facial features] and 3D face tracking to understand the actor’s appearance, physical actions and emotional performance in every shot,” says Scott Mann, Flawless founder.
• The technology can transfer better performances between takes, swap dialogue lines, and maintain emotional content while changing the visual appearance of speech.
• Mann says the process costs “about a tenth of the cost of shooting it or changing it any other way.”

The big picture: Traditional dubbing has long limited international film distribution, particularly in the US market where audiences are less accustomed to subtitled content compared to European viewers.

• Maxime Cottray, chief operating officer at XYZ Films, a Los Angeles-based independent studio, notes that foreign language films have historically been “limited to coastal New York viewers through art house films” in the US.
• “To contextualise this result, if the film were not dubbed into English, the film would never have made it into US cinemas in the first place,” Cottray says about Watch the Skies.

What they’re saying: Industry leaders see the technology as expanding access to international cinema while preserving artistic integrity.

• “The first time I saw the results of the tech two years ago I thought it was good, but having seen the latest cut, it’s amazing. I’m convinced that if the average person if saw it, they wouldn’t notice it,” says Cottray.
• Mann emphasizes the technology doesn’t replace actors: “What we found is that if you make the tools for the actual creatives and the artists themselves, that’s the right way of doing it.”

The counterargument: Academic experts warn that AI dubbing could diminish cultural authenticity and accessibility.

• Neta Alexander, assistant professor of film and media at Yale University, argues that making foreign films “look and sound English” risks creating content that is “increasingly mediated, synthetic, and sanitised.”
• She notes that replacing subtitles could harm “language learners, immigrants, deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and many others” who rely on closed captioning.
• “Rather than ask how to make foreign films easier for English-speaking audiences, we might better ask how to build audiences that are willing to meet diverse cinema on its own terms,” Alexander suggests.

Who’s involved: Flawless counts “pretty much all the really big streamers” as customers, while AMC plans to run more AI-dubbed releases following the success of Watch the Skies.