Scorsese partners with AI startup Black Forest Labs for storyboarding
The acclaimed filmmaker joins the board of the $3.25 billion company, which powers features for Adobe, Microsoft, and Meta, marking a shift in Hollywood’s stance on artificial intelligence.
Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese has signed on as a partner and adviser to Black Forest Labs, a German artificial intelligence startup valued at $3.25 billion. The partnership, first reported by the New York Times on Tuesday, sees the filmmaker utilising the company’s image-generation technology exclusively for storyboarding. Scorsese stated that the tool allows him to communicate his vision to cinematographers and production designers more efficiently than traditional methods.
The 70-person company is headquartered in Freiburg, Germany, and was founded by the team behind the Stable Diffusion model. Despite its European base, the startup’s technology currently powers image features for major technology firms including Adobe, Canva, Microsoft, and Meta. The venture is backed by investors that include BroadLight Capital, which was co-founded by Scorsese’s talent manager, Rick Yorn.
Scorsese, who has created his own storyboards for 70 years, described the new workflow as a way to accelerate the pre-production process. While the scope of the collaboration is limited to visual planning, the involvement of such a prominent figure in cinema signals a potential evolution in how established creators engage with generative AI tools.
The development comes at a time when Hollywood’s historically fierce resistance to artificial intelligence is showing signs of softening. Industry observers note that this partnership is just the newest sign of that shift, even as concerns about the technology’s impact on creative roles persist. The limited nature of Scorsese’s use case—strictly for storyboarding—may help mitigate some of the backlash typically associated with AI integration in film production.
Black Forest Labs has previously navigated complex partnerships in the AI space. According to Wired, the startup declined to partner with Elon Musk’s xAI in recent months. This decision followed an earlier collaboration on Grok’s image generator, which ended amid concerns regarding the platform’s content safeguards. The firm’s ability to maintain strict boundaries on its technology’s application appears to be a key factor in its current commercial relationships.
As the entertainment industry continues to grapple with the integration of AI, Scorsese’s advisory role may provide insight into how legacy creators can adopt these tools without compromising their artistic control. The partnership highlights the growing intersection between traditional filmmaking and advanced machine learning, particularly as major tech firms embed these capabilities into their creative software suites.
