Former UTA film agent Dante DeSario has launched Collage, a management company devoted to AI-native production.
The new firm has closed a seed funding round, with Black Bear and Fundamental Films investing. Other investors and senior advisors include Dennis Miller, Blue Deer Media, GOAL Ventures, AGC Studios, Roy Lee, Marty Bowen, Todd Lieberman, Todd Garner, Barry Porter, George Huber, Max Michael, and Ric Roman Waugh.
Clients of the L.A.-based company at launch include a number of top-shelf names in the emerging arena of AI. On the roster are Asteria, the studio behind software platform Continuum and recent festival feature selections like Alpha Gang and Chikaboom!; real-time 3D animation studio Defect; Berlin-based AI studio Lipstick; Matriarch, the AI-native and hybrid production company from ex-Luma Dream Lab L.A. chief Verena Puhm; Native Foreign, creator of the OpenAI-backed franchise Critterz; Obsidian, Wes Walker’s studio partnership with Imagine Entertainment; Secret Level, the studio behind hybrid horror feature Terrarium; and Lux Meridian, the generative production arm of Territory Group whose work includes Dune, The Martian, and Guardians of the Galaxy.
The stated goal of Collage is to build a bridge between AI-native production companies and Hollywood studios, streamers, filmmakers, and brands. Once connected, the company’s thesis holds, the parties will build their respective businesses, expand their reach, and develop commercial relationships.
After a couple of years of high anxiety over how the influx of AI could reshape the production process and possibly eliminate jobs, the entertainment business has generally settled into a more pragmatic phase. On a macro level, the AI boom is contiuning apace, and against that backdrop a growing number of traditional players have been reaching across the aisle to Silicon Valley.
As a member of UTA’s independent film group, DeSario worked with filmmakers and packaged and arranged financing for hundreds of films, including Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid. The well-received Cannes title fetched a UTA-record in the high-teens millions in a sale to A24. Other films in DeSario’s portfolio included Damian McCarthy’s Hokum (Neon), Jennifer Peedom’s Tenzing (Apple), and Alex Ullom’s upcoming 4 x 4 (Neon).
Collage’s role in the emerging ecosystem of AI will be to help organize it by identifying top suppliers; matching production methods to projects; pricing and sizing projects; and helping to ensure proper management of the quality, legal and delivery aspects of production. The company will also invest selectively in companies, either directly or down the line through dedicated investment vehicles managed by Collage Capital.
“We saw extraordinary creative companies emerging around generative production, but very little infrastructure around them,” DeSario said in a statement. “Hollywood needed a trusted way to find and work with the best of these companies, while the companies themselves needed help with business development and operations, technology relationships, and capital. We built Collage to connect the two and give great creative companies the support they need to grow.”