Martin Scorsese is the latest Oscar-winning director to jump on the AI wagon, joining AI company Black Forest Labs as an advisor in a bid to “push the boundaries of creativity and create deeper and richer experiences for viewers.”
“Movie is a young medium, only 125 years old, so we must be open to how it evolves,” Scorsese said in a statement posted on the Black Forest Institute’s website. “I leveraged 3D on Hugo and de-aging technology on The Irishman. These tools allow me to more clearly and efficiently share what I’m visualizing with my creative team (production designer, art designer, cinematographer) and leverage it to enhance the intelligence of the film.”
In a video shot at Scorsese’s New York City offices to accompany the partnership announcement, the “Goodfellas” director uses the company’s FLUX-generated AI model to storyboard scenes. He then talks about directing the crime film’s famous Steadicam shot tracking gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) through the Copacabana nightclub, noting how each “scene” in the scene had to be intricately staged.
“If you have tools like this, you can get up to speed much faster, save production time, and have less wear and tear on your staff,” Scorsese said in the video.
Black Forest Labs CEO Robin Rombach, who co-founded the Freiburg, Germany-based company in 2024, told the New York Times that Scorsese’s partnership is “great proof that this can work.” A spokesperson for the director said he was introduced to the company through Broadlight Capital, the investment firm that invested in Black Forest Labs, which was co-founded by Scorsese’s manager Rick Yorn. CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz is also an investor in the AI company and helped seal the partnership, the paper said.
It’s unclear whether Scorsese himself invested in the company, and Black Forest Labs did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for Scorsese declined to comment.
Scorsese, one of the greatest directors in the history of film, is working with many of his Academy Award-winning colleagues to embrace AI in varying degrees.
“Avatar” director James Cameron is on the board of Stability AI, maker of the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, and of which Rombach is an alumnus. “The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson also compared AI to “special effects” during a master class at the Cannes Film Festival last month and said, “I don’t hate it.” Not everyone agrees. Last month, “Pan’s Labyrinth” director Guillermo del Toro criticized people who believe that “art can be made with shitty apps,” and last year the filmmaker said he would “better die” than use generative AI in his films.
Scorsese’s endorsement of the Black Forest Institute comes as Hollywood embarks on a new wave of AI adoption. Tribeca Festival will host the world premiere of Dreams of Violets, a 75-minute fully AI-generated docudrama focused on Iran’s civil resistance movement. “Rogue One” director Gareth Edwards also said at Amazon’s AI on the Lot event last week that he wants to make a hybrid generative AI movie.
Scorsese said in a statement that he tested Black Forest Labs’ tools to help storyboard scenes for upcoming films, and claimed that the AI tools would allow him to better express the images in his head.
“The pre-production process costs time and money, but it allowed us to move faster without sacrificing quality or technique,” Scorsese said.
