Ben Lamm, the billionaire founder of Colossal Labs, and Sophie Turner spoke about his company’s efforts in reviving the long-extinct dire wolf during a panel at SXSW’s first London outpost.
The wolf re-entered the public consciousness because of the television show “Game of Thrones,” in which Turner was a leading character. It turns out that even she thought that dire wolves were mythical creatures.
“Were you a fan of ‘Game of Thrones’?” Turner asked.
“I was a fan of ‘Game of Thrones,’” Lamm said. “When ‘Game of Thrones’ came out, which was a while ago, I never thought, ‘Oh, by the way, one day we’ll make dragons or dire wolves.”
Lamm retold the story of how he and his team at Colossal “brought back” the dire wolf species, which had been extinct for more than 10,000 years. He also provided some updates as to what the company is working on next, including a bio-acoustic project, announced just a few weeks ago.
Lamm said his dire wolves started howling at 3 weeks old, responding to human singing and the sounds of owls. The first two, Romulus and Remus, are now around 6 months old. Lamm and his team are looking at ways to use AI to help monitor the behavior of the wolves, identifying patterns of their emotions and “wolf linguistics,” as he put it.
“What’s crazy about it is the dire wolves have their own unique pitch and inflection,” Lamm told the crowd. “We’re going to release that later this year,” he said, referring to a bio-acoustic project, which will map out the different types of dire wolf howls.
The wolves live on a 2,000-acre preservation in a top-secret location. He referred to the park as “very Yellowstone.” It has an animal hospital, as well as full-time caretakers and full-time security. The wolves are learning socialization tactics that would help them in the wild. “They’re starting to do some light predation on the preserve,” he said. “They’re becoming more and more true wolf-like every day.”
He also said that they are about to officially introduce the two wolves to a newly created dire wolf, a female named Khalessi, who is around 3 months old.
The public met Colossal Labs’ efforts to “de-extinct” animals with fascination and skepticism, with the top criticism being that Colossal’s dire wolves are merely genetically edited gray wolves.
But investors seem quite interested in where Colossal could be headed with its innovation. TechCrunch reported back in March that the company is looking to “revive” the Tasmanian tiger and the dodo, two other extinct animals. The company announced this year a $200 million Series C at a $10.2 billion valuation and said in March it genetically modified mice to grow mammoth-like fur. (Lamm said it impressively took only a month to do.)
Turner did ask Lamm a question that he unsurprisingly gets quite often. “What about dinosaurs?” she asked. “Can you bring them back?”
He said his company isn’t focused on that at the moment, as bringing a dinosaur back is quite complicated, Lamm explained. But later in the conversation, he said there might be a new update coming from Colossal soon.
“I think maybe this summer, there could be a dodo update that’s interesting,” he said.
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![‘Backrooms’ Wants You Back and Is Adding More Rooms (Footage)
Backrooms, the surprise hit of the summer, wants you back in the room. And by room, we mean theater. Its distributor, A24, is reportedly gearing up to release a new version of the film with 15 extra minutes of footage starting on July 3. According to the AMC Theaters website, the Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition “includes 15 minutes of new, theatrically exclusive post-credit bonus footage from [director] Kane Parsons.” What exactly is in that footage, we don’t know, and surely A24 is hoping you go to the theater to find out. We would be very, very surprised, though, if it expands too greatly on the mythology of the world or its creepy, ambiguous ending. That’s certainly the hope, but with a sequel almost certainly on the way, we’d imagine most secrets will be held until then. And yet, what about Backrooms has been traditional so far? We’re just speculating. It could very well be a whole new ending with twists and turns about what exactly the backrooms are, where they came from, and what their purpose is. The move comes as the summer season really heats up with the upcoming releases of Minions & Monsters, The Odyssey, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day over the next few weeks. Currently, Backrooms sits at about $185 million domestically but grossed only about $4 million this past weekend, good enough for sixth place.
Adding additional footage to get a few more repeat viewings is probably aimed at crossing the $200 million mark domestically, which would be an incredible feat. Not that grossing over $185 million in the U.S. and over $330 million worldwide isn’t already an incredible feat on its own.
Are you ready to head back to the theater to see more Backrooms? Is there anything that could be added that would be a disappointment? Let us know below. And to check if the Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition is coming to your local theater, check its ticketing website. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Backrooms #Adding #Rooms #FootageBackrooms,Kane Parsons ‘Backrooms’ Wants You Back and Is Adding More Rooms (Footage)
Backrooms, the surprise hit of the summer, wants you back in the room. And by room, we mean theater. Its distributor, A24, is reportedly gearing up to release a new version of the film with 15 extra minutes of footage starting on July 3. According to the AMC Theaters website, the Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition “includes 15 minutes of new, theatrically exclusive post-credit bonus footage from [director] Kane Parsons.” What exactly is in that footage, we don’t know, and surely A24 is hoping you go to the theater to find out. We would be very, very surprised, though, if it expands too greatly on the mythology of the world or its creepy, ambiguous ending. That’s certainly the hope, but with a sequel almost certainly on the way, we’d imagine most secrets will be held until then. And yet, what about Backrooms has been traditional so far? We’re just speculating. It could very well be a whole new ending with twists and turns about what exactly the backrooms are, where they came from, and what their purpose is. The move comes as the summer season really heats up with the upcoming releases of Minions & Monsters, The Odyssey, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day over the next few weeks. Currently, Backrooms sits at about $185 million domestically but grossed only about $4 million this past weekend, good enough for sixth place.
Adding additional footage to get a few more repeat viewings is probably aimed at crossing the $200 million mark domestically, which would be an incredible feat. Not that grossing over $185 million in the U.S. and over $330 million worldwide isn’t already an incredible feat on its own.
Are you ready to head back to the theater to see more Backrooms? Is there anything that could be added that would be a disappointment? Let us know below. And to check if the Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition is coming to your local theater, check its ticketing website. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Backrooms #Adding #Rooms #FootageBackrooms,Kane Parsons](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/06/Backrooms-furnature-pile-1280x853.jpg)

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