Renowned filmmaker Martin Scorsese is now an adviser and partner to Black Forest Labs, a German company that builds AI tools for generating images and video from written descriptions, according to a recent report by The New York Times.
Scorsese, known for movies such as Taxi Driver (1976), Goodfellas (1990), and The Departed (2006), said he used the company's technology to plan out scenes before filming started on a new project. Storyboarding, as this preparation is known, has been part of his method for decades.
He told The New York Times that the new software helped him share what he saw in his imagination with colleagues, such as the director of photography and the production designer. He added that the tool saved valuable time during the expensive lead-up to shooting, without cutting corners on craft.
His backing is confined to preproduction work, not to creating finished footage, the NYT report clarifies. Black Forest Labs, co-founded in 2024 by Robin Rombach, confirmed that Scorsese joined as a partner and adviser last year. Rombach said the involvement of such a respected filmmaker was a strong demonstration that the technology could be useful.
The development comes as Hollywood's attitude towards generative AI softens. During the strikes in 2023, when more than 170,000 industry workers walked off sets, limits on AI were one of the unions' most important demands. At that time, many studios treated the topic as toxic. Now, prominent figures are speaking more openly about finding ways to coexist with the technology. At the Cannes Film Festival, Demi Moore argued that resisting AI is a losing battle. The Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by Robert De Niro, recently announced it would screen a movie made entirely with AI. Amazon MGM Studios has also unveiled several AI-created programmes for children.
However, not everyone is persuaded. Seth Rogen and Guillermo del Toro spoke out against the technology at Cannes last month, and the Amazon children's shows faced criticism that led one person involved to step away. Scorsese himself declined to be interviewed for the Times story, and his involvement is limited strictly to the planning phase of filmmaking.
According to the NYT, the connection between the director and Black Forest Labs was arranged through BroadLight Capital, an investment firm co-founded by Scorsese's manager, Rick Yorn. Michael Ovitz, the former talent agency leader, is also a backer of the startup and appears in a short film released to mark the partnership.
