Art Directors Guild Condemns Scorsese for Black Forest Labs Role: 'The Business Is Not in Flux'

The Art Directors Guild (IATSE Local 800) issued a formal statement on June 9, 2026 condemning Martin Scorsese for his advisory role at Black Forest Labs, the maker of the FLUX generative AI image model. The guild said Scorsese's promotion of the tool "circumvents the input" of its 2,966 members and called his position "a betrayal of the collaborative nature of cinema".

The statement landed on the same day the Directors Guild of America concluded its four year deal with the AMPTP. The DGA deal includes language requiring studios to consult directors before using generative AI on the creative elements of a production. The ADG's separate IATSE Basic Agreement contains no equivalent provision.

'The Business Is Not in Flux'

The statement's opening line: "Mr. Scorsese, The Business is not in flux". The word "flux" is a deliberate pun on the name of the Black Forest Labs product Scorsese publicly endorsed. The guild did not bury it.

The full text accuses Scorsese of "turning his back on the human artists who throughout his career have helped him create his most memorable works". It then quotes directly from Scorsese's June 2 promotional video, in which he asks, "How do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew?" The ADG's position is that question has been answered by its members for decades.

"Mr. Scorsese's promotion of a generative AI product circumvents the input of Art Directors Guild Local 800 art directors, graphic artists, illustrators, production designers, scenic artists, set designers, and other talented Union professionals", the statement reads.

The guild also addressed the source material behind the model: "Generative AI is only capable of producing this type of 'cinematic intelligence' by ingesting large swaths of copyrighted work, likely scraped from the internet without consent, credit, compensation, or transparency".

Who the ADG Represents, and What It Has Been Losing

The Art Directors Guild covers four craft classifications: art directors and production designers; scenic, title and graphic artists; illustrators and matte artists; and set designers and model makers. The classifications also include storyboard artists, concept artists, previs artists, and model makers.

ADG membership stood at 3,492 in 2022. By 2025 it had dropped to 2,966, a 15% decline in three years, according to membership data published by The Hollywood Reporter. The guild is in the middle of its IATSE Basic Agreement, which runs through approximately July 2027. It cannot call a strike or reopen negotiations. The June 9 statement is the only formal instrument available to it.

The June 9 statement is not the guild's first confrontation with AI. In July 2024, the ADG's Illustrators and Matte Artists Council recommended members vote against IATSE's tentative agreement because of weak AI language. The Council's statement read: "Writers won the right to choose to use AI or not. We have no such autonomy". Members ratified the agreement anyway. The WGA secured the right for writers to opt out in its April 2026 deal, alongside $321 million for writer health plans.

Scorsese Has Not Responded

Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Wrap all reported that Scorsese's representatives did not respond to comment requests following the ADG statement.

Scorsese's stated use case, described in detail in his June 2 Black Forest Labs announcement, is generating storyboards to share his visual intentions with "the production designer, art designer, and cinematographer". Those job titles map directly onto ADG covered classifications. His described use case is the workflow the guild was built to protect, and that alignment has not been addressed publicly by either side.

Scorsese is currently directing "What Happens at Night" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. Principal photography began February 24, 2026.

When the Director's Manager Is an Investor

BroadLight Capital, a Black Forest Labs Series A investor, was founded in part by Rick Yorn, Scorsese's longtime personal manager. TechCrunch confirmed the BroadLight connection in its June 2 coverage of the partnership announcement. None of the trade press coverage of the ADG statement has noted that Scorsese's advisory role at Black Forest Labs runs through a chain in which his own manager holds a financial stake.

Black Forest Labs completed a $300 million Series B in December 2025 at a $3.25 billion valuation. The investor base includes Andreessen Horowitz, NVIDIA, Salesforce Ventures, Temasek, Bain Capital Ventures, and General Catalyst. Adobe, Canva, Microsoft, and Meta have all built products on the FLUX API.

Two Guild Deals, One Day Apart in Spirit

On June 9, 2026, the ADG published its statement and the DGA closed its four year deal with studios. The DGA agreement, which covers Scorsese as a member, includes a provision stating that employers "may not use GAI in connection with the creative elements of a picture without consulting the Director or other DGA-covered employees".

Scorsese now operates under a consultation requirement giving him a formal voice when studios deploy generative AI on his projects. The illustrators, art directors, and storyboard artists the ADG represents do not have that voice. The WGA secured the right for writers to opt out. The ADG, whose members' work appears in the training data the ADG statement references, was not at the table for any of those agreements.

Individual filmmaker criticism of Scorsese's partnership, from Boots Riley and Kane Parsons, put the endorsement question on the record five days earlier. The ADG's June 9 statement adds an institutional layer: a guild formally on the record that the advisory role circumvents its members' work, published the same day Scorsese's own guild secured the protections it had been fighting for.

Filmmakers working with AI image generation tools, including FLUX, can access the AI FILMS Studio image workspace directly.

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Sources

Variety | The Hollywood Reporter | Deadline | The Wrap | Consequence of Sound | TechCrunch | IndieWire