Darren Aronofsky’s AI studio Primordial Soup seeks $15 million
An SEC filing shows Primordial Soup is targeting new funding after Google DeepMind-backed shorts and a mixed reception for its U.S. history series.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
2 min read
Darren Aronofsky’s AI venture Primordial Soup is looking to raise $15 million, according to an SEC filing made public last week.
The company, launched in 2025, has moved quickly into the buzzy and contentious corner where Hollywood meets generative AI. The Hollywood Reporter first reported the fundraising effort.
A fast start in AI filmmaking
Primordial Soup teamed with Google DeepMind last year on three short films built with the tech company’s generative AI models, tools and capabilities, including Veo, according to Deadline.
Each short was planned with an emerging filmmaker in the director’s chair and Aronofsky serving as mentor. The first project from that collaboration, Ancestra, was directed by Eliza McNitt and screened at the Tribeca Festival.
Another Google-backed project from the company, On This Day … 1776, took a different route. The short-form series used AI to depict key moments before, during and after the founding of the United States.
The episodes were released on Time’s YouTube channel to mark the country’s 250th birthday, according to Deadline. The response was rough in some corners: The Guardian wrote that the “once-lauded director … has drowned himself in AI slop.”
Aronofsky pushes back on replacement fears
Speaking in Cannes in May, Aronofsky described the history series as “always meant as an experiment,” according to Deadline.
He also addressed one of the loudest fears around AI in film and television, the concern that the technology could displace creative workers. “It takes a tremendous amount of human labor and artistry and intention to make anything good with this technology,” Aronofsky said.
That debate has become a flashpoint across the entertainment business as studios, tech companies and artists test tools that can generate images, video and other material from prompts and datasets.
Aronofsky is best known for films including Black Swan and The Wrestler. His interest in tech-driven formats predates Primordial Soup.
He was the first major filmmaker attached to create work for Sphere in Las Vegas, according to Deadline. His film Postcard from Earth debuted after U2 opened the venue in 2023 and included footage shot across all seven continents.
At the time, Aronofsky posted on Instagram that his iPhone “can’t come close to capturing the definition on the screen. at times you forget where you are.”
With the new fundraising target now disclosed, Primordial Soup appears to be positioning itself for a larger role in AI-assisted production, even as the creative community continues to argue over where experimentation ends and replacement begins.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.