Martin Scorsese revealed as Black Forest Labs partner and advisor
What's the deal? Martin Scorsese has revealed he is a partner and advisor to Black Forest Labs, the AI startup behind image generation tool Flux. According to the New York Times, Scorsese signed on last year, but the collaboration was made public on June 3 with a video showing the director using Flux to storyboard his next film, "What Happens at Night," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.
The film follows a couple travelling to a small European town to adopt a child. Scorsese used Flux to visually map out what the setting could look like — a use case limited entirely to pre-production storyboarding, not final filmmaking.
"I am interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling — and how it can push the boundaries of creativity to deliver deeper and richer experiences for audiences," Scorsese said in a statement. He added that cinema is "just around 125 years old. So we have to be open to how it can evolve."
Flux allowed him to "share what I envision more clearly and efficiently with my creative team," a process he described as "creativity liberating." He said the tool also helped production save costs and move faster.
Why now? AI-generated imagery has matured enough to be genuinely useful in filmmaking workflows. Scorsese acknowledged a long-standing problem in pre-production: "how to convey what you see in your head to the cast and crew." Tools like Flux now offer a practical solution — fast, cheap visual mock-ups that help directors communicate intent before cameras roll.
What could go wrong? Scorsese's endorsement of an AI product will almost certainly spark backlash. The use of AI in creative industries remains deeply controversial, with many artists viewing it as an existential threat.
At the Cannes Film Festival, Guillermo del Toro complained about living in a time when people believe "that art can be made with a fucking app." Scorsese's involvement lends significant cultural legitimacy to a technology many creatives want to resist.
The signal: Black Forest Labs has reached late growth stage remarkably quickly for a company whose chief executive came from Stability AI, suggesting investor confidence in the next generation of image-generation startups even as the broader generative AI market matures. Scorsese's backing — alongside James Cameron's board seat at Stability AI and Peter Jackson's public embrace of similar tools — points to a deliberate strategy by AI imaging companies to recruit marquee creative figures as legitimacy shields against industry resistance.
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