๐ฒDigital TrendsโขStalecollected in 12m
Martin Scorsese partners with AI startup Black Forest Labs
๐กSee how a legendary filmmaker is integrating generative AI into professional pre-production workflows.
โก 30-Second TL;DR
What Changed
Martin Scorsese joins Black Forest Labs as a strategic partner and adviser.
Why It Matters
This partnership signals a significant shift in Hollywood's adoption of generative AI for creative workflows. It validates the use of AI in high-end professional filmmaking, potentially accelerating industry-wide integration.
What To Do Next
Explore the FLUX.1 model architecture on Hugging Face to understand how its image generation capabilities can be integrated into your own creative or visual workflows.
Who should care:Creators & Designers
Key Points
- โขMartin Scorsese joins Black Forest Labs as a strategic partner and adviser.
- โขThe collaboration focuses on integrating AI tools into the film pre-production process.
- โขScorsese will specifically use the technology for storyboarding new film projects.
๐ง Deep Insight
Web-grounded analysis with 15 cited sources.
๐ Enhanced Key Takeaways
- โขMartin Scorsese publicly demonstrated using Black Forest Labs' FLUX generative model to storyboard scenes, including a famous sequence from his film Goodfellas, emphasizing its role as a communication tool for his creative team.
- โขThe collaboration was facilitated through existing investor connections, notably BroadLight Capital, co-founded by Scorsese's manager Rick Yorn, and entertainment mogul Michael Ovitz, who is also an investor in Black Forest Labs.
- โขBlack Forest Labs, founded in 2024, was established by Robin Rombach, Patrick Esser, and Andreas Blattman, who were previously instrumental in developing Stability AI's Stable Diffusion models.
- โขThe company has secured over $450 million in total funding across two rounds, with its latest Series B round in December 2025 valuing the company at $3.25 billion post-money.
- โขBlack Forest Labs' FLUX generative AI technology is already integrated and utilized by major tech industry players such as Meta, Adobe, Microsoft, and Elon Musk's xAI for various image and video generation features.
๐ Competitor Analysisโธ Show
| Company/Product | Key Features | Target Audience | Noteworthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Forest Labs (FLUX) | Generative image and video models, high-resolution photorealistic output, character/style consistency, multi-reference image editing, API/self-hosted deployment. | Filmmakers, enterprise workflows, creative professionals. | Scorsese partnership, founders from Stable Diffusion, $3.25B valuation. |
| Shai Creative | Script-to-visual automation, professional animatics, industry-standard collaboration, character consistency. | Filmmakers, creative professionals. | Designed by filmmakers for filmmakers, focuses on speed and creative depth. |
| Storyboarder.ai | Script-to-storyboard workflow, 3D camera angle tool, animatic creation, shot list generation. | Screenwriters, directors. | Offers precise framing control with a virtual camera in 3D space. |
| Katalist.ai | Script-to-visual conversion, AI storyboard generation, character/scene maintenance, video-style outputs. | Independent filmmakers, content creators. | Focuses on simple storyboard creation. |
| Higgsfield Popcorn | Storyboard generator with built-in video creation, consistent scene generation, character persistence, reference image style matching. | Social content creators, short-form video producers. | Enables direct generation from storyboard frames to video. |
| Boords | Combines traditional storyboarding with AI-assisted frame generation, team collaboration, client approval workflows. | Agencies, teams managing client approvals. | Allows mixing AI-generated frames with manual sketches. |
| Drawstory | Director-focused AI storyboarding, designed around production workflows (scripts, characters, locations, props). | Film directors. | Emphasizes real production workflows and polished pitches. |
| Canva Storyboard Maker | Beginner-friendly interface, ready-made templates, drag-and-drop editing, simple AI media tools. | Marketers, educators, solo creators, small teams. | Easiest option for quick social content and basic visual planning. |
| LTX Studio | Flexible text-to-storyboard-to-video, builds shots, characters, angles, full storyboards, control over lighting, blocking, motion, pitch decks. | Creators needing comprehensive control and multiple outputs. | Provides extensive control over cinematic elements from a browser. |
๐ ๏ธ Technical Deep Dive
- Black Forest Labs develops the FLUX family of diffusion models for generating and editing images and video.
- The FLUX.1 Kontext model expanded capabilities from text-to-image generation to in-context image editing, allowing iterative modifications with text while preserving character consistency and scene coherence.
- The open-weight FLUX.1 Kontext [dev] is a 12-billion-parameter model designed to run on consumer hardware, offering up to 8x faster inference than competing models and supporting platforms like ComfyUI, HuggingFace Diffusers, and TensorRT.
- The FLUX.2 family includes various model sizes and capabilities, such as a 32-billion-parameter open-weight [dev] model and lightweight [klein] variants (4B and 9B parameters).
- FLUX.2 [klein] models are optimized for sub-second inference and require as little as 13GB VRAM, making them accessible on consumer hardware.
- Black Forest Labs' models operate via API or self-hosted deployment and utilize diffusion-based architectures that interpret user intent rather than simply executing prompts.
- The company's overarching vision is to build visual intelligence, aiming to develop models that unify visual perception, generation, memory, and reasoning.
๐ฎ Future ImplicationsAI analysis grounded in cited sources
Scorsese's endorsement will accelerate AI adoption in film pre-production workflows.
A legendary director publicly using and advocating for AI tools provides cultural credibility and a practical reference point for other filmmakers and studios, potentially normalizing its use.
The partnership will intensify labor discussions regarding AI's role in creative industries.
Crew unions may leverage Scorsese's public use of AI storyboarding as evidence of top-tier directors legitimizing tools that could impact the work of human storyboard artists, leading to more rigorous negotiations.
Black Forest Labs will likely expand its 'cinematic intelligence' offerings beyond storyboarding.
The company's stated vision is to build 'visual intelligence' and develop models that unify visual perception, generation, memory, and reasoning, suggesting broader applications across the filmmaking process.
โณ Timeline
2024
Black Forest Labs founded by former Stable Diffusion team members.
2024-08
Raised $31 million in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
2025-08
Achieved an estimated $96 million in annualized revenue.
2025-09
Signed a multi-year licensing deal with Meta worth $140 million.
2025-12
Closed a $300 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at $3.25 billion post-money.
2026-06-02
Martin Scorsese joins Black Forest Labs as a strategic partner and adviser.
๐ Sources (15)
Factual claims are grounded in the sources below. Forward-looking analysis is AI-generated interpretation.
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Original source: Digital Trends โ