Amazon's Prime Video has acquired worldwide rights to Çukur: Vartolu, a feature built entirely with generative AI by the Turkish producer Ay Yapım. It is a spin-off of the crime drama Çukur, known abroad as The Pit. Variety broke the deal on 10 October, and Turkish daily Yeni Çağ followed three days later. No release date has been set, and no streaming window has been named.
The film comes from AI Yapım, Ay Yapım's Singapore-based AI studio, which put out a two-episode AI series called Castle Walls on Prime Video in August. The company says every frame is machine-made, faces and settings included. Human actors still performed the scenes, with AI characters generated over their movement, timing and expression, and the dialogue was recorded by human voice actors.
Wide promotional image for the Vartolu film as used by Yeni Çağ
Image: Yeni Çağ
Umut Aral directs, Kerem Çatay produces, and Gökhan Horzum, head writer of the original series, wrote the script. The story is a prequel about Vartolu Sadettin, an illegitimate son of the Koçovalı family who grows up orphaned on the streets, waiting for a father who never comes, and turns to revenge. It shifts between his childhood in Doğubeyazıt and his later years in Istanbul.
The franchise gives the project a ready audience. Çukur has aired free-to-air in 105 countries since 2017, and Ay Yapım says its official YouTube channel has passed 6.4 billion cumulative views. AI Yapım presents the film as taking its AI-first method from an original story to an established drama franchise.
Sources · 2