Martin Scorsese has dipped his feet into the deep end of tech with his latest venture as a partner and adviser to Black Forest Labs, an artificial intelligence image-generation startup based in Freiburg, Germany.
The Oscar-winning director, known for his meticulous work on storyboards, is using AI solely for speedier communication with cinematographers and production designers. “For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards,” he said, “but this tool helps me do it faster and more efficiently.”
Black Forest Labs, founded by the team behind Stable Diffusion, powers image features inside Adobe, Canva, Microsoft, and Meta, and was recently valued at $3.25 billion by its investors including BroadLight Capital, co-founded by Scorsese’s talent manager Rick Yorn.
The startup has shown resilience in recent months, declining to partner with Elon Musk’s xAI after an earlier collaboration on Grok’s image generator sparked concerns over content safeguards. Despite the unlikely address, it’s clear Hollywood’s resistance to AI is softening, at least when it comes to storyboarding.
While some may be concerned about AI's broader implications in entertainment, for now, Scorsese's involvement signals a new chapter where tech and tradition coexist on set.
