Boots Riley, other artists light up Scorsese for his new AI deal

That’s included artists who’ve worked on some of the superhero films Scorsese has frequently prodded the zeitgeist by being less than complimentary toward, with Marvel concept artist Karla Ortiz (per The Guardian) accusing the director of throwing “every single storyboard artist he’s ever worked with under the bus.” Meanwhile, Castlevania animated series director Samuel Deats wrote that “There is absolutely no reason to need AI built on the stolen work of millions of artists to storyboard your vision.”

One of the most vitriolic responses, though, came from Sorry To Bother You and I Love Boosters director Boots Riley, who minced no words in his assessment of Scorsese’s reasoning for taking this latest gig. “My guess,” Riley wrote on social media, “At 83, they gave his family a gang of money (they throw tens of millions left&right) he wanted the income stream4them& feels like ‘AI’ will fall on its face anyway, so he doesnt give a fuck. If that’s not the case, extrafuck him.” Riley then followed that declaration of extrafuck by showing his own admittedly amateurish storyboards for his films, noting that, while he later paid an artist to make something more polished, even his basic stick figures do the actual job of storyboarding—i.e., letting a director visualize shots and communicate them to their fellow filmmakers on a movie. “You don’t have to use AI to do this shit,” Riley concluded.