EXCLUSIVE: German outfit BriskPace Studios, launched in 2025 by Al Munteanu with the team behind his SquareOne Productions, has launched BriskPace Unlimited, a new-formats label.
The label’s first original series is set with The Light and Hard Times of Lucky Briscoe, a true-crime comedy about an imprisoned orangutan with political ambitions, co-produced with AiMation, the AI studio Unlimited part-owns.
Former SquareOne Entertainment boss Munteanu created the series and is unveiling a first look (above) today during his keynote at MIA in Rome.
Jason Hazeley, a writer on BBC comedy Cunk on Earth, is show-runner of the series, with Joe Markham (The Amazing World of Gumball) writing. Munteanu is creator and executive producer and co-directs with Tom Paton (Non-Player Combat), founder of AiMation. The series, whose pilot is in the can, is made with AI-generated imagery and music under the direction of a human creative team.
A synopsis for the series reads: “Lucky is an orangutan who went from Communist Romania to sitcom star, guru, cult leader, fashion icon and politician, and is now in federal prison. Yes, it’s completely unhinged.”
Munteanu said: “We kept our heads down for a year and built something truly bananas. Rome, famously, wasn’t built in a day either, though they never had to contend with a con-man orangutan. So it feels right that Rome is where we show him first: on Friday at MIA I’ll be sharing scenes from our finished pilot.”
Munteanu continued: “Twenty-odd years of producing, marketing and releasing films and television, and this one taught me something new: how radically different production has become, and how little the job has changed. Tom and I directed it together, and the better idea won every time. People decided. The machines did what they were told. Mostly.”
Hazeley added: “Take a state-of-the-nation documentary and throw banana skins at it. It’s Adam Curtis meets Chuck Jones: one scheming, brilliant ape versus the system. Fearless, kinetic and funny. Funny is the important bit.”
Paton commented: “The better idea always won, whoever had it, and we spent most of our time in the studio laughing. The technology is just technology; what matters is whether it’s funny. We’re thrilled to have BriskPace Unlimited on board.”
BriskPace Unlimited will work on AI-native productions, micro-dramas and creator-led formats, developed alongside Briskpace Studios’ film and TV slate. Unlimited holds a minority stake in AiMation. It is also a seed investor, alongside Groupe M6, in Sweetz, the French micro-drama app from AI studio Nation and app publisher Kovalee, and an investor in Snips, the Israel-based platform turning full-length film and TV into vertical micro-episodes, which launched in August with catalogue deals from Banijay Rights and BIG Media.
“Unlimited is for the bonkers ideas, the ones that speak to a new audience and live in a 360-degree universe: vampires, orangutans, German angst,” Munteanu added. “With Lucky we began with the end in mind: it’s going to buyers and it’s going direct to audiences, and the great people around me, including a few hires we’ll be announcing soon, built both routes this year.”