Martin Scorsese has signed on as an adviser to AI firm Black Forest Labs, with the stated aim of pushing the limits of creativity to build deeper, richer experiences for audiences. The partnership was unveiled through a statement on Black Forest Labs’ website and a video shot at Scorsese’s New York City office.
The collaboration has drawn criticism from fans and critics on social media who argue the technology could rob storyboard artists of their work. Scorsese is not the first Academy Award-winning director to publicly engage with artificial intelligence tools, and he will likely not be the last.
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About Black Forest Labs
Black Forest Labs is based in Freiburg, Germany, and was co-founded in 2024 by Robin Rombach, who serves as CEO and is an alum of Stability AI, the company behind the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion. Rombach told the New York Times that Scorsese’s involvement represents “a great proof point that this works.”
It was unclear whether Scorsese himself has invested in the firm, and Black Forest Labs did not respond to an immediate request for comment on the matter.
Scorsese Explains The Partnership
In his statement published on Black Forest Labs’ website, Scorsese painted the partnership as a natural extension of the medium’s ongoing development. “Cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve,” Scorsese said on the company’s website.
The director framed AI tools as the next step in a line of technological advances he has embraced throughout his career in the service of storytelling.
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Scorsese’s History With Technology
The veteran director pointed to past experiments with emerging filmmaking tools to contextualize the new partnership. “I utilized 3D with Hugo and de-aging technology for The Irishman.“
“Now, with this tool, I can share what I’m visualizing more clearly and efficiently to my creative team — the production designer, art designer, and cinematographer — for them to build on to enrich cinematic intelligence,” Scorsese said in the same Black Forest Labs statement.
His willingness to adopt technology that other filmmakers approached with caution was on full display in Hugo in 2011 and The Irishman in 2019.
Testing The Technology
The announcement video shows Scorsese using FLUX, Black Forest Labs’ generative AI model, to help storyboard a scene for an upcoming film. The 83-year-old tested the tools during pre-production on the project and said the technology helped him better express the visual ideas he had in his head, allowing the team to move through the planning phase more quickly.
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Lessons From Goodfellas
In the video filmed at his New York City office, Scorsese brought up the famous Steadicam shot from his 1990 film Goodfellas, which follows Ray Liotta’s mobster Henry Hill as he makes his way through the Copacabana nightclub, explaining how each vignette through the scene had to be intricately staged.
“If you have a tool like this, you could figure it out much, much quicker, and you could save production time, and also less wear and tear on the crew,” Scorsese said, making the case that the technology reduces the logistical burden on productions without compromising the creative process.
How The Deal Came Together
Scorsese’s director spokesperson confirmed he was introduced to Black Forest Labs through BroadLight Capital, an investment firm that has invested in the company and was co-founded by Rick Yorn, Scorsese’s personal manager.
CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz, who has also invested in Black Forest Labs, helped seal the partnership, according to the New York Times, with Yorn and Ovitz playing key roles in connecting the director to the firm.
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The Backlash Online
Some fans and critics on social media described the partnership as heartbreaking, arguing that the technology will take work away from storyboard artists who currently handle the kind of pre-production visualization that FLUX is designed to assist with.
One user pushed the backlash further by reposting an earlier video in which Scorsese appeared to scoff at the idea that his daughter Francesca would use AI in cinema, even to make a viral video. The resurfaced footage gave critics something to point at, highlighting what they saw as a clear contradiction in his views.
Other Oscar-Winning Directors Weigh In On AI
The artificial intelligence conversation has pulled in more than one Academy Award-winning director, and Scorsese is the newest name on that list. Avatar director James Cameron sits on the board of directors for Stability AI, the company where Black Forest Labs CEO Robin Rombach previously worked.
At a Cannes Film Festival masterclass last month, Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson said, “I don’t dislike AI” and likened it to “a special effect.” Rogue One director Gareth Edwards made his own statement at Amazon’s AI on the Lot event last week, saying he wants to create a hybrid generative AI film.
Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro came down hard on the other side last month, slamming those who believe “art can be done with a fucking app” and, earlier last year, stating that he would “rather die” than use generative AI in his films.
The Tribeca Festival will host the world premiere of Dreams of Violets, a 75-minute fully AI-generated docudrama focused on the Iranian civilian resistance.
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The Case For Efficiency
Scorsese left no room for ambiguity in his Black Forest Labs statement, pointing to the pre-production stage as the specific point at which the tool earns its keep.
“During the pre-production process, time costs money, and this allowed us to move faster without sacrificing quality or craft,” Scorsese said, describing the technology as a way to communicate his visual ideas to his creative team more quickly and clearly.
