Collage launches to link AI studios with Hollywood
A new company called Collage has launched to manage and invest in production outfits built around artificial intelligence. It was founded in July by former UTA agent Dante DeSario and media investor Michael Lambert, according to Variety. The Beverly Hills firm is pitching itself as a bridge between AI-first makers and the Hollywood pipeline of financing, production and distribution.
DeSario worked in UTA's independent film group, the agency department that handles films made outside the major studios, before leaving in March, Variety reported. The idea for Collage dates to February 2024, when he saw an early demonstration of Sora, OpenAI's text-to-video generator. He started the business with Lambert five months after his exit.
Collage has completed a seed funding round, the first outside cash raised to get a young company running, Variety reported. The sum was not disclosed. It employs five full-time staff and about a dozen part-time staffers.
Its first clients are four AI studios: Asteria, Native Foreign, Obsidian and Secret Level from director Jason Zada, according to Variety. Collage will advise them on development and deals and put its own money behind projects. That mix of management, which guides careers and finds buyers, and investment is uncommon for a start-up of this size.
Its backers and advisers include production and finance groups Black Bear, Fundamental Films, AGC Studios, Blue Deer Media and GOAL Ventures, alongside producers Roy Lee, Marty Bowen, Todd Lieberman and Todd Garner, executives Barry Porter, George Huber and Max Michael, investor Dennis Miller and director Ric Roman Waugh, Variety reported.
Collage arrives as Hollywood tests practical uses for the technology. Husband-and-wife team Caleb Ward and Shelby Ward run Curious Refuge, an AI film-making school, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Los Angeles start-up Promise AI is developing AI-backed features that have attracted credited writers, the Reporter noted in a separate story, while producers Amy Hobby and Avi Zev Weider launched Films Not Made, a podcast that uses artificial intelligence to revive dead pitches, according to Deadline.
What makes this stand out is the focus on companies, not single films. Collage is not selling software or one production. It wants to handle the plain work of budgets, contracts and release plans for a group of AI-native studios.
For viewers, little changes yet. No projects or release dates have been announced. The test will be whether these studios can move work through the normal chain from script to screen.
