Pouya Shahbazian, producer of the “Divergent” films and Andrea Arnold’s Cannes Jury Prize-winning “American Honey,” has launched the new AI production company Staircase Studio, which aims to produce 30 films over the next four years at budgets of $500,000 or less through the use of artificial intelligence software.
Huffington Post co-founder Kenneth Lerer is joining the studio as a partner with Lorenzo di Bonaventura signed on as an advisor. Staircase Studios plans to use scripts and performances from human writers and actors as the basis for its films, with the voices and expressions from performers forming the basis for the AI-generated footage.
“After packaging and selling 150 projects into the studio system over
the past 15 years, I’ve borne witness to far too much inefficiency to continue the status quo. Over the past year, I’ve dedicated myself to pairing ethical AI usage with our industry’s most underutilized assets–overlooked stories waiting to be produced from fantastic writers and directors,” Shahbazian said in a statement.
“Thanks to Kenny and our investors, it’s been thrilling to be able to hire those talented artists to do what they do best—make the kinds of films that the industry actually wants but lacks the risk tolerance to currently greenlight,” he added.
The studio is already in production on its first project, “The Woman With Red Hair,” directed by Brett Stuart and produced from Michael Schatz’s 2016 Black List script. It tells the true story of Johanna “Hannie” Schaft, a young woman who dropped out of college to join the Dutch Resistance during WWII, eventually becoming one of their most talented assassins and one of the Nazis’ most wanted enemies. It stars newcomer Maya-Nika Bewley, Leander Vyvey “(“Vikings: Valhalla”), Angus Castle-Doughty (“Shadow & Bone”), and Geoffrey Breton (“The Crown”).
Teddy Newton, former Pixar animator and character designer for “The Incredibles,” provides the character designs used by Staircase’s propriety AI workflow, ForwardMotion, for the film. Emmy-winning animator Alfred Gimeno also contributed art and designs.
Staircase Studios released a sizzle reel for “The Woman With Red Hair,” which can be viewed here.
