‘Divergent’ Producer Pouya Shahbazian Reveals Investors, First Productions for His Staircase Studios AI

“Divergent” franchise producer Pouya Shahbazian has revealed the investors and the first productions planned for his recently-founded Staircase Studios AI, a film, television, and gaming studio centered on an AI workflow. The venture aims to produce more than 30 projects in the next 3-4 years at budgets under $500,000.

The key members of the team include partner and lead investor Kenneth Lerer, who co-founded The Huffington Post and is managing director emeritus of the venture capital firm Lerer Hippeau. Additional investors are Aryeh Bourkoff, CEO of Liontree; Robert Pittman; Tad Haley of Rafiki Ventures; and venture capital firm Red Sea Ventures.

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura (“Transformers”) is an advisor to Staircase Studios.

“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,” said Shahbazian, Staircase’s CEO. “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. 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.”

Now in production, Staircase’s first project is “The Woman with Red Hair,” directed by Brett Stuart from Michael Schatz’s 2016 Black List script. It tells the 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. It stars Maya-Nika Bewley, Leander Vyvey, Angus Castle-Doughty and Geoffrey Breton. The production features original character designs from Teddy Newton, a Pixar alum who was one of the character designers of “The Incredibles,:” and art and designs from Emmy Award-winning animator Alfred Gimeno (“Tiny Toon Adventures”).

Additionally, “Every Living Creature,” a fully animated adventure thriller directed by Emmy Award winner Bernie Su, is in preproduction. J.R. Arellano adapted the script from digital media magazine Truly Adventurous’ article of the same name, which tells the true story of three daredevils who risked their lives to rescue animals left stranded on the Caribbean island of Montserrat after a 1997 volcanic eruption.

Staircase has acquired pieces of IP and scripts. This includes “Wild Night,” based on a novel by New York Times-bestselling author Patrick Lee that will be produced by di Bonaventura; “Between The Dog & The Wolf” from writer/director Matthew Sand; “Fully Wrecked,” a story about an “R Rated talked car” by Josh Feldman and Scott Wolman; and Nick Hurwitch’s “Sundown.”

The lineup includes an untitled procedural series from showrunner Gabe Rotter; and a series adapted from Mark Svartz’ graphic novel, “I Hate You Kelly Donahue.”

On the gaming side, Staircase is partnering with AI gaming tech company Mother Games.

Development of Staircase Studios’ proprietary AI workflow, dubbed ForwardMotion, was led by head of AI filmmaking Brett Stuart, with an aim of producing what the company describes as “near-major studio quality releases.”

“AI is inevitable across all industries, and it’s crystal clear what’s ahead for movies, television, and gaming,” said Lerer in a statement. “While the industry is invariably dealing with the innovator’s dilemma that stagnates innovation, at Staircase, we have been a first mover and have already built out a process that puts us on course to scale a truly stand-out studio and platform for AI content.”