When Adapt Entertainment CEO Darryl Marks bought the domestic rights to the Polish Holocaust drama “The Champion,” he hoped that he could help the film’s story reach a wider, English-language audience. But he told the film’s director that his plan would involve using visual effects and A.I. to seamlessly convert the movie into the English language.
“He said, ‘I think it would be great because I wanted to do the movie in English and had no money to do it,” Marks recalled director Maciej Barczewski telling him. “Just don’t make my guys look like monkeys.”
While “Parasite” and “Squid Game” have changed the landscape for how English-language audiences consume international content, Marks believes the digital technique they utilized on “The Champion” could become a template for how to take international cinema to the next level.